


Humanity

by pointyshades



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Although It Shouldn't Get Too Bad, Angst, Demon!Dean, M/M, Tagged For Violence Just In Case, attempted suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-06-18
Packaged: 2018-01-26 07:38:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1680167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pointyshades/pseuds/pointyshades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Listen to me, Dean Winchester. What you're feeling right now - it's not death. It's life - a new kind of life. Open your eyes, Dean. See what I see. Feel what I feel. And let's go take a howl at that moon."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. This Was No Accident

**Author's Note:**

> What a surprise, it's another demon!Dean fic! But hey, before you click away, let me tell you that I'm doing my best to keep this one original, and full of twists. (Spoilers, though, for season 9 and its season finale. You have been warned.)
> 
> I am in the process of writing another fic at the same time, but the season finale left me with so many unresolved feelings I just had to sit down and write this one. So be warned - it will probably update erratically, maybe slowly, maybe faster than you expected. It really just depends.
> 
> So please, be patient with me, and enjoy reading! And remember, comments are appreciated - I'm always looking to improve my writing through your feedback.
> 
> Thank you!

First, he tries killing himself.

He rams the blade into his stomach, twisting and pulling, the teeth of the bone weapon snagging against his skin. It hurts, but not as much as it should. The blood that wells up from the wound is thick and cold.

“Oh, don’t bother,” says a gravelly accent. The man on the bed looks up, his face scraped and bruised, his hands white-knuckled on the blade which is still embedded in his torso.

“It won’t work, you know,” continues the accent-bearer, offering a slight shrug. “Unsurprisingly, it’s hard to kill a dead man. Especially in your case.” He pauses, and lowers a calculating stare at the bed’s occupant before continuing, “Now, why don’t you pull that thing out of your guts and we’ll talk?”

The other man looks down at the weapon as if noticing it anew. It is a jawbone, carved so that one end forms a handle. Teeth are missing, and the surface of the bone is pitted with age, but nonetheless it maintains a malicious aura. It is smeared darkly with his blood. His hands shake ever so slightly on the handle as he pulls the blade out, gritting his teeth together with the slow pain of the action. He should be screaming; he should be dying. Instead, he wipes the blade on the duvet with a casual air and leaves a stain of his own blood.

“Good,” says the other man. “Now, time for step two.”

He never gets to elaborate on what step two is, because the bleeding man suddenly launches himself from the bed, mouth wide, something like a growl ripping loose from his mouth. The blade is gripped tightly in his hands and he swings at the man with the accent.

His attack meets empty air and he stumbles, coming to a stop as his outstretched hand thumps against the wall. Bright eyes, full of bloodlust, search frantically for his prey. But the man that was standing here just a second before is gone, vanished without a trace.

The bedroom’s only remaining occupant slowly straightens up. His palm leaves a bloody handprint on the wallpaper as he pulls it away. He looks down at his shirt. It is soaked in red, and when he pulls the fabric up, there is a jagged, ugly wound beneath. It’s not bleeding, though, at most no more than a sluggish ooze, so he lets it fall back into place and looks around the room again. The fury fades from his eyes: not gone, but hidden by a thin veneer of conscious thought, of deliberation.

Step two. Step two is to get the hell out of here.

He runs a hand over his face, feels his fingers shaking against his cheek. He is still gripping the blade in his other fist.

Dean takes a deep breath, and flees the bunker.

\---

Dean runs for a long time.

He can’t - he doesn’t _dare_ \- take the Impala, so he jogs, gets halfway to town before he finds a car he can hotwire. Then it’s a quick job and he’s on the open road, driving with one hand, the other still gripping the blade. For some reason he can’t seem to let go of it. He tries to ignore the fluttering at the edges of his vision, and bites his cheek through the worst visions, the hallucinations of death and carnage that cloud his sight.

After a while - he’s not sure how long, but it’s dark outside the windows of the silver Nissan - he crosses the border into Nebraska. The road ahead of him is barely visible. He decides he needs to switch his headlights on, and to do it, he lets go of the jawbone clenched in his right hand.

The reaction is immediate. Dean feels like he’s having a heart attack, and he hits the brakes out of instinct. The car skids to the side of the road as pain flares in his chest and stomach. God, it hurts. It hurts so bad.

Frantic, he undoes his seatbelt and paws at the fabric of his shirt again, undoing buttons until he’s staring at the skin of his chest. It’s a mess down there, all dried blood and torn flesh, a patchwork of injury.

Gingerly, Dean prods the edge of one circular wound with his finger. Instant pain washes over him, and he jerks his hand away. Blood starts to ooze from the lip of the wound again. He stares at it, dripping slowly down his chest, until he realizes what he’s seeing.

That’s a mortal wound, right there. That is the stab mark left by an angel blade as it entered and exited his chest. That is the injury that killed him, and he’s sitting here poking it in the dark front seat of a Nissan at the side of the road.

All at once, Dean is laughing. It’s harsh laughter, too shrill, but he can’t stop. His chest and stomach hurt with every breath. Who the hell would have guessed this was where he’d be after fighting Metatron? Who would have guessed this was what he’d be?

It’s a sobering thought. Dean manages a raspy breath that isn’t laughter, and he coughs a couple times to get the remaining urge to chuckle out of his chest. It also brings up a little blood, but hey, it’s not like a few more drops are going to ruin the cheap fabric on these seats, right?

He reaches for the dash and switches his headlights on; they illuminate a stretch of empty road before him. Good thing no one has driven past and seen him idling here, halfway into the gravel shoulder. If they’d stopped to help, they would have been met by a nasty sight.

His shirt is wet with new blood. It’s cold on his skin. Dean shivers, and reaches out to grab the blade again as he presses down on the gas pedal. His firm grip on the wheel helps keep his hand from shaking so much.

Dawn finds Dean rolling through the streets of an unknown town, his headlights dim and his gas meter fluttering on empty. He brings the Nissan to a stop in front of a cheap Motel 6 and gets out. The rough asphalt of the parking lot feels unreal beneath his feet. He realizes he is still clutching the jawbone, and thinks he should probably do something about that before someone sees him and calls the police.

There’s nothing he can do about his bloodstained shirt; he didn’t bring any other clothes with him, not even a coat. But he wraps the blade in a blanket he finds in the back of the Nissan and carries it with him as he enters the motel. He doesn’t bother to lock up the car. He won’t be using it again anyway.

The woman at the front desk is distracted, mousy hair falling into her face as she bends over some paperwork. A different time, maybe, Dean might have pursued her, might have leaned across the desk and made some sly remarks, a smirk crawling across his face. Now it is all he can do to walk softly and stand a respectful distance away while he waits for her to notice his presence. It doesn’t take long.

“Can I help - ” she begins, then swallows the rest of her sentence as her eyes light on Dean’s bloodied clothes and haggard face. She claps a hand over her mouth.

“Don’t worry,” Dean interjects, trying to be reassuring with a voice that is rough from pain. Even this short time without touching the blade is hurting him, and he can feel blood trickling down his chest again. “I hit a deer on my way here, got its blood all over me carrying it off the road. I’m exhausted, a little scraped up and I haven’t had my coffee yet, but I promise I’m not gonna murder you.” He grins, the expression feeling foreign on his face.

How long has it been? Eight hours?

“I - I - Of course, sir, if you’d just give me your name and the number of nights you’ll be staying?” squeaks the receptionist. She clearly doesn’t believe Dean. She’s clever, too; her suspicion has strayed to the wadded-up blanket Dean is carrying at his side. Oh, but he would have loved to have a chat with her over drinks, in the old days.

“Single room. Only one night. I can pay in cash, if you’d like.”

She probably wouldn’t - paying in cash is just another suspicious behavior. Dean quietly curses himself for not bringing any fake credit cards. Then again, they would have left a trail that cash never does.

“And can I get a name for that, sir?” the receptionist is asking, biting her lip as she types information into her computer.

Dean searches his mind for one of his established false identities and draws a quick blank. He has to answer now, or the woman’s doubt will reach ‘call the police’ levels.

“Walter,” says Dean smoothly. “Walter Novak.”

And then he curses himself for using the last name of Cas’ vessel, because if anyone comes looking for him that will be a bright and shining beacon pointing the way. He’ll have to leave this motel extra early, focus on building up a trail with a less conspicuous identity, and then switch names again, as often as possible. He’s done it before.

“Right, Mr. Novak. Well, here’s your room key, and all our rooms come with complimentary bath kits if you need to get…cleaned up. I hope you have a nice stay.” The receptionist is rambling, but that’s okay; it means less talking for Dean.

“Thanks,” he says, accepting the keycard. “Enjoy the rest of your morning.”

He can feel her uncertain eyes on his back as he heads for the stairs, so he makes sure to walk slowly, like a tired man who’s just helped a dying animal off the road and wants to rest for while.

He doesn’t think about how little that description applies to him until he’s standing inside the room, keycard in hand. It’s cozy, maybe to the point of being cramped. There’s a mini-fridge and a couple of mints on the pillowcase, and the basket of complimentary toiletries the receptionist had mentioned. Dean drops the blanket-bundled blade on the bed and stands there for a moment, staring across the room with the thought in his head that if there’s anything he is anymore, it’s not a man.

“Fuck!” he shouts suddenly, kicking the side of the bed. His boot clunks against the wood there, but he pays it no attention. “Fuck! Fuck, fuck, _fuck_!” He swipes his arms across the counter, sending the coffee maker and toiletries clattering to the floor. He kicks the mini-fridge and throws a chair against the ground.

“Fuck everything!” he’s shouting, staring into the bathroom mirror over a sink littered with those little tiny shampoo and conditioner bottles, and he really should be quiet but he can’t stop the words now that they’ve started pouring out. “Why does this have to happen to me? Why me? Why, after fucking everything I’ve done?”

He slams a fist down on the counter, and the shampoo bottles jump. _“Why does it have to be me?”_ bellows Dean, and he squeezes his eyes shut to stop what feels like tears threatening, because he doesn’t want to cry. This is not the time to cry.

He swallows hard in the sudden silence of the room.

He waits until he’s sure no stray tears are going to spill over, and then, slowly, he opens his eyes.

He is standing in front of the bathroom mirror. His face stares back at him, scratched and cut and bruised. His mouth is pulled down at the corners and there is stubble on his chin, but he doesn’t notice any of this because it was all there a second ago.

It’s the same reflection, of course, except for one thing.

His eyes are black.

\---

Castiel sits on a park bench knowing Heaven is accessible again and Metatron, the self-absorbed scribe of God, is safely locked up. Even if the gates of Heaven themselves are still closed, it is a victory.

It doesn’t feel like a victory.

The wind ruffles Castiel’s hair, a sensation he never would have noticed before his brief stint as a human. Now he has learned to take everything around him into account, to appreciate the world in its many shades and hues. Losing his grace taught him to look at the blue of the sky, to feel the green grass beneath his heels, even to - cliché as it may be - stop and smell the roses. He always liked red roses the best, with their bright petals and thorny stems. There is a bush across from him now, in full bloom, the red of the roses a shade that would have once seemed defiant against the pale sky.

Now, though, everything seems grey.

Castiel knows this is another cliché, but with Dean Winchester dead, the color seems to have gone out of the world. He folds his hands quietly in his lap and thinks about Heaven, thinks about Metatron and the faithful angels that are keeping guard over him. Mostly, though, he thinks about Dean.

 _“You draped yourself in the flag of Heaven,”_ said Metatron, _“But ultimately, it was all about saving one human, right?”_

Castiel turns his head to the side, both in real life and in his memory. The point hit too close to home, he remembers. He is a faithful soldier of Heaven. He has always been. He has always wanted to save his brother and sister angels.

If he has wanted to save Dean Winchester along the way, well, that is what friends do, isn’t it? Castiel has not had many friends over his millions-of-years lifetime, but he is pretty clear on this point. Friends save each other.

Still, whispers a voice in the back of his mind, would he have done the same for Sam?

He takes a deep breath and lets it out, staring out across the park. He is an angel. He does not need to think about these sorts of things. It is good to have friends, and it is very sad when they die. Castiel is sad and angry that Dean is dead. He does not need to complicate this by thinking about exactly what Dean meant to him.

He should return to the bunker, should comfort Sam, but he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t think he can face Dean’s lifeless body, doesn’t think he can bear standing over his friend’s corpse and saying no, I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do.

Time was when a touch of Castiel’s fingers could have brought Dean back from death.

Now, he sits on the park bench and he feels a grace that is not his burning away inside of him, and he is angry, and he is sad.

 _“Guess what? He’s dead, too,”_ said Metatron, with a mocking little smile, his beady eyes glinting like a crow’s.

For just a moment, Castiel regrets not killing him.


	2. If You Walk, You Better Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If Metatron told you Dean was dead, then…well, he didn’t lie. Not exactly.”
> 
> “What do you mean?”
> 
> “He’s - Cas, I understand this is going to be hard for you to hear. I just think - ”
> 
> “Tell me, Sam,” says Castiel, with sudden force behind his tone. Sam blinks, and obliges.
> 
> “He’s a demon, Cas.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 is here, and much more quickly than I'd expected! Apparently this is what I do on Memorial Day.
> 
> As always, comments are much appreciated, and I hope you enjoy reading!

He doesn’t sleep, because demons don’t sleep.

He tries, though, closes his eyes and lies down on the hard motel mattress, feeling every lump. He tries not to think about how the receptionist downstairs could be calling the police right now. He tries not to think about what Crowley is telling his brother, what Crowley is telling Cas.

What he does think about is his future. And to be entirely honest, it looks pretty grim right now.

What does he plan to do? He can’t keep running forever, from his past and from Sam, who is sure to be on his trail as soon as he finds out that Dean’s alive. Dean doesn’t want to go back to _“We can fix this”_ and _“This is what family does.”_ After all, Sam is the one who pointed out that that crap doesn’t work.

_“Everything bad that’s happened to us has happened because we’re family.”_

Dean gets up, tired of staring at the ceiling and sick of Sam’s voice in his head. His eyes land on a certain bundle, a blanket-wrapped weapon. It calls to him, and something begins to throb behind his eyes as he looks at it. Potential. Potential to kill. He reaches out one shaking hand, begins to pull at the blanket.

Then he sees the blood on his fingers and yanks his hand away.

He’s disgusted with himself. He’s like a drug addict, jonesing for another fix of that murderous weapon in his hand and the feeling that he could do anything. Dean turns away, angry.

In order to avoid these urges, he’ll have to stick to a plan. First step - washing up.

The sink is faulty and only gives out cold water no matter how far Dean turns the knob. He splashes the icy liquid on his face, wincing slightly as the scratches there protest. He’s been avoiding the bathroom mirror since earlier, but now he checks it, making sure he gets all the dried blood off his face. His eyes stay mercifully green. He looks like hell.

Dean undoes the buttons on his bloodied shirt and pulls it off, tossing it to one side. He’s not sure what he’s going to do for clothing, but he can’t wear what is by now little more than a blood-stiff rag. He reaches to scoop up some water, and his eyes land on his shirtless reflection.

Gone is the gaping hole from Metatron’s angel blade. Gone is the jagged, oozing cut Dean carved in himself in an attempt to escape his new reality. All that remains is a patchwork of raw, red lines and spots where formerly there were wounds.

“What the hell?” murmurs Dean aloud, prodding one of the red lines. It stings, but no more than the fading scratches on his face. Dean runs a hand down his torso and feels healing skin. There is no blood, not even dried blood from earlier.

“Okay, that’s freaky.” Dean glances at his discarded shirt; yes, it’s soaked in red. Looks back at his torso - blood-free. “Real freaky.”

No demon he’s ever met has healed like this. And definitely no demon has sucked their own guts back in - which is what it seems like he’s done, and which is also a little bit gross.

He finishes washing the blood off his hands and face, finds a motel pamphlet, and sits down to read it. Step two - acquire clothing. A look of satisfaction crosses his face as he reads that the motel has washing machines available for use, five cents a load. Dean wads up his shirt, then takes a couple of towels from the bathroom and adds them to the pile, to hide the blood. He opens the door to his room and steps out into the hall.

There’s no one else in the laundry area. However, there is one washing machine running. “Jackpot,” mutters Dean.

With a quick glance around for bystanders - there are none - he stops the machine mid-wash and roots through the wet clothing. It’s all pretty douchey stuff, but Dean manages to find a green tank top that wouldn’t make him want to kill someone, and a decent leather jacket. He bundles the sopping clothes into his towel pile, closes the lid on the washing machine, and leaves.

Three hours later, Walter Novak is dead and Jim Carnaby is buying chips at a 7-11 in Gothenburg. Dean pays with cash, stuffs the change into the pocket of his new jacket, and saunters off towards his second stolen car in as many days.

When he glances in the rearview mirror, his eyes are black. He blinks hurriedly until they go back to normal. No one seems to have noticed anything, so he maintains his casual air as he gets into the car and drives away.

He doesn’t realize until a while later that demons don’t eat chips.

\---

It’s raining when Castiel finally drags his feet to the bunker’s doorstep. He stands before it for a while, seeing his face reflected in the wet metal. He looks bedraggled, hair flattened by water, trench coat sopping. That’s what happens, reflects Castiel, when you sit on a park bench for twelve hours without any weather protection.

He raises a hand and gingerly knocks on the door. It makes a weak rapping sound, barely louder than the rain. Castiel knocks again, harder this time.

“Sam,” he calls. “It’s me. Cas. Can I come in?”

There’s a long silence broken by the patter of raindrops on cement. Castiel is considering knocking for a third time when the door swings open and Sam Winchester is standing there, looking terrible and holding a gun. Castiel decides not to comment on Sam’s appearance, since he hardly looks better himself.

He enters, and Sam closes the door behind him with a clanging of metal. They descend the stairs in silence. Castiel notices that Sam is still holding the gun, and wonders if this is a bad sign.

Neither of them speaks until they are standing in the center of the library and there is nothing else to distract them.

“I’m sorry,” says Castiel.

“It’s not your fault,” says Sam. He puts the gun down on a nearby table. It makes a _thunk_ sound as it hits the wood a little harder than necessary.

“May I…see him?” asks Castiel, and he tells himself no, he does not want to see him, why did he ask that? If there is anything Castiel wants to see less in this world than Dean Winchester’s lifeless corpse, he is not aware of it. His fingers twitch, panicky, almost hoping that Sam will say no.

Sam doesn’t say no. He doesn’t say anything. He looks away, and something softens in his expression for a moment.

Castiel is silent.

“He’s not here,” says Sam, and out of anything he could have said Castiel was expecting that the least. He frowns, a line deepening between his brows.

“Not here? Then where is he? Did you already…?” He cannot bring himself to finish the sentence. Even unspoken, the image of Dean’s body in a pyre of flames is not a pleasant one. Castiel wonders if he meant so little to Dean, that Sam wouldn’t even wait for his presence before giving Dean a hunter’s burial.

Sam takes a deep breath. The steel returns to his eyes. “He’s not dead, Cas. Not - not really.”

Castiel blinks, and he is sitting down, having lost track of his feet somewhere after the end of Sam’s sentence. Sam is standing over him, concern marring his already-disheveled features. His eyes and nose are red, like he has been crying.

“Not dead,” says Castiel. “Did Metatron lie?”

_“He’s dead, too,”_ said the dumpy little scribe with a smile that Castiel wanted very much to slice off his face.

“If Metatron told you Dean was dead, then…well, he didn’t lie. Not exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s - Cas, I understand this is going to be hard for you to hear. I just think - ”

“ _Tell me,_ Sam,” says Castiel, with sudden force behind his tone. Sam blinks, and obliges.

“He’s a demon, Cas.”

A demon. Castiel looks down at his hands, folded in his lap. He wonders, if he marshaled all the fading grace in his body, if he could undo all that has happened and save Dean. He thinks about telling Sam that he is lying, that it couldn’t be possible. He thinks about telling Sam that it would be better if Dean had died.

But he doesn’t tell Sam that, because Castiel is far too selfish. He would rather have Dean, demon or not.

“How?” he asks instead, and sees something relax in Sam’s face, like tentative relief.

“The First Blade,” explains Sam. “According to Crowley, it’s the same thing that happened to Cain. Cain died - well, actually, he killed himself. But the Blade wouldn’t let go of him, because it wanted to be used. It wants to kill, and it’s not going to let Dean die while he can achieve its ends.”

“So it brought him back as a demon.” Those deliberate words seem to cut Castiel on their way out, seem to jab into his chest and leave a wound there.

“Yeah,” says Sam.

They look at each other for a while, quiet, both of them hurting. Castiel feels the hole in his chest widening with each passing second. And yet the most painful feeling of all is the faint hope that begins to bloom - the hope that if Dean is still alive, he may still be himself.

“I’m sorry,” Sam says finally. Castiel stands up, and Sam makes as if to offer him an awkward hug, but Castiel can’t take that right now. He takes a step back, and Sam’s face falls even further.

“I’m sorry, Cas. I really am. I know you - ”

“We have to find him,” says Castiel, cutting Sam off before he can finish his sentence. “If Dean is out there, then we have to find him.”

“He ran away,” warns Sam. “He’s a demon now. You don’t know what he’s going to be like. Maybe…” He pauses, as if it pains him to say this. “Maybe it would be best to let him go.”

“No,” says Castiel.

They take the Impala. Sam cranks up one of Dean’s favorite songs and Castiel wonders if he should cry.

\---

The digital clock on the car’s dashboard reads 10:34 when Dean starts to feel it. A throbbing behind his eyes, a pounding in his head. His hands have been seizing up sporadically all day, but now they shake so hard he can’t drive. He pulls into a Shari’s parking lot and takes his hands off the wheel.

It’s loud, now, in the car. It takes Dean a long moment to realize the rushing sound is in his head, and the steady drumming sound is his pulse. His breath comes hard and fast, and his vision is swimming.

He gets out of the car and staggers on the rough asphalt of the parking lot. He doesn’t know what’s wrong. He doesn’t know what’s happening.

Except then he does, and his shuddering hands are reaching for the bundle on the passenger’s seat of their own accord. Dean unwraps the blanket, reveals the First Blade. It fits into his hand as if it was born to be held there. The bone is warm against his palm, almost alive.

He’s barely breathing. His heart pounds in his chest. His jacket covers his arms, but he knows that if he rolled up his sleeve now he would see the Mark there glowing with fire. It hurts, it burns, and he likes it.

There is a man in the alley next to the Shari’s. He’s lighting a sputtering cigarette, cursing at it as the flame refuses to take. His hair is black and curly, his face in shadow.

Dean slams him against the wall with ease. The man’s cigarette falls to the ground, going out almost instantly. “Wh - ” he exclaims, and then Dean’s arm is at his throat, choking him into silence.

The bone blade sings in Dean’s hand. This is it; he was born to kill. He brings his hand back, grinning wordlessly with the exhilaration of it all.

The man looks up at Dean. Light from the lonely street lamp illuminates his face for the first time, lending shape to the shadow beneath the curls. His eyes are very blue, a pale blue. Like Cas’ eyes, thinks Dean out of nowhere. His hand begins to descend, clutching the weapon. Blue eyes.

Suddenly he is killing Cas. He plunges the jawbone into Cas’ stomach, stopping the angel’s cries with a hand over his mouth. Not blood, but white light pours from the wound. Dean takes his hand away, and Cas is screaming, no, and his grace is spilling out of him and he is dying and Dean stabs him no he holds him no he kills him no no no

“No,” chokes Dean, “No,” and he’s staggering away from the wall, dropping his arm. The curly-haired man, released from Dean’s grip, sprints away down the alley. Dean doesn’t stop him, although of course the man will go straight to the police and there will be a warrant out for Dean’s arrest.

He can’t stop him.

Dean drops the blade. It clatters on the ground and everything goes very silent. Dean can no longer hear his heartbeat, the rushing of his breath in his ears. He stares at his shaking hands and tastes blood in his mouth.

Somehow, he gets back in the car. Somehow he covers the blade in its protective blanket and drives to a nearby hotel, where he books a room and holes up for the night. Somehow Dean does these things, but he doesn’t know how, because all he can see is Cas’ blood on his hands and the angel’s limp body at his feet, burnt imprints of wings stretching out from his dead vessel.

Dean spends the rest of the night puking up blood in a crappy hotel room, the urge to kill surging over him and then ebbing just as quickly. He feels like shit. The First Blade is so close, is only lying a few feet away, on the bed. It would be so easy to pick it up and go to the front desk, to take the receptionist’s life with a swipe of the weapon.

He doesn’t do that, though. He shivers, and huddles over the sink as his own blood fills his mouth, and he thinks about angel wings.


	3. A Face Like Heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve said it before, but I’m not sure you remember.”
> 
> The toes of his boots, sticking off the edge. Blood smeared on their soles.
> 
> “I need you, Cas.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I'm writing this story faster than almost anything I've ever written! So I hope you guys are enjoying it. Thank you to those who showed their support in the comments, and as always, thank you all for reading!

The second time Dean Winchester tries to kill himself, it is by jumping.

He stands on the roof of Ogallala’s city hall and stares down at the cars crawling by below him, the people casually carrying on with their days. If just one pedestrian looks up – that man in the grey jacket, maybe, or the woman behind him with the red hair and briefcase – they will see Dean on the roof. They will probably shout, or ask him if he’s okay.

Or they will move on, not caring, because he is an abomination and he deserves to die.

Dean knows that would not happen. But he imagines it. He looks at every person on the street below and he can see them dying, can feel their blood pulsing out over his fingers. His hands tremble, clutching at a phantom blade.

He steps up on the concrete edge of the roof. Wind whips through his short hair. He spreads his arms and waits for some gallant last words to come to him, some speech that he can proclaim to the air and the clouds before he splits his head on the pavement. His mind is blank. Maybe he can’t think of any last words because he doesn’t truly believe he is about to die.

Still, Dean tells himself harshly, it is easy to patch up a couple knife wounds. Harder to glue a body back together that has smashed itself open on the hard ground.

This will work. It has to work. If it doesn’t, he thinks that he may just kill every pedestrian he sees below, for the fun of it. He is so angry at them, so angry that they have not died yet. That he has not killed them.

He clears his throat. No matter if he is going to live anyway, he wants to say something. To mark the occasion, or maybe to distract himself from the specter of death that hangs before him. It is no easy task to step off a roof.

 _Sam,_ he thinks of starting, or, _Listen, God, wherever you’re hiding…_

Instead, he says, “Cas,” and then he can’t stop himself. “Cas, if you’ve got your angel ears on – which you probably don’t, because of your stolen grace or whatever, which by the way was a real stupid move and I wish you would just dump that thing already before it burns you up, I promise being human isn’t that bad…” He takes a breath and starts again. “Anyway, Cas, I want to say I’m sorry for everything. And – tell Sam I’m sorry, if you’re hearing this. He really needs to know that.”

The wind blows by, and Dean sways on his feet, looking down. A blue sedan drives by. Dean sees the driver and pictures him bleeding, chest laid open to the bone.

“I don’t – I don’t think I’ve been that honest with you guys, lately,” he continues. “I keep telling Sam it’s fine that we can’t be brothers anymore. It’s not fine. I’m…I have a lot of problems. I know it. Family is one of them, but fuck it, I want to have Sam as a brother and I want him to be mine.” He looks to the side, clenches his fists.

“And I want…I want to die telling you guys that I care.” But Dean isn’t talking to both of them, and he knows it. He’s talking to Cas. And the words keep welling up. “I care, Cas. I care that you’ve got a rotten grace chewing away at your insides and I care that you got screwed over by Metatron and man, I know it’s fucking with you, that you were the one to close up Heaven. But listen, it’s not your fault.”

He breathes slowly, and suddenly grins, taken with how ridiculous this last prayer is. He’s talking to an angel a hundred miles away, who isn’t even listening, while he prepares to jump to his probably-not-death.

Dean edges his feet closer to the drop-off and keeps talking, like it will distract him. The first time, when he stabbed himself, that was impulse. A knee-jerk reaction to finding out he was a demon, the thing he’d been hunting his whole life. Now, he has time to think about it, to contemplate death. It’s not pleasant.

“You gotta take care of yourself, man. You gotta – you gotta watch over Sammy, when I’m not here to do it. And you gotta not be too sad when I’m gone. I know you’re an angel and everything, but I also know you’ve got feelings just like anyone else, and bottling them up isn’t healthy. Look where that got me.”

The drop is so near. The wind is so loud.

“I’ve said it before, but I’m not sure you remember.”

The toes of his boots, sticking off the edge. Blood smeared on their soles.

“I need you, Cas.”

Breathe in. Breathe out. Whisper, to the wind, before he falls.

“And I need you – to not need me when I’m gone.”

He steps forward. Empty air seems almost to support him for a second, and then he is falling, plummeting faster and yet simultaneously slower than he had imagined. He turns in midair, so that he cannot see the pavement. Instead he sees the sky, which doesn’t appear to recede as he falls.

It hurts, with back-breaking pain, when he hits the ground.

It hurts almost as violently when he wakes up to the distraught voices of concerned passers-by.

“Oh my god,” a woman’s falsetto is saying, “He’s alive. He’s alive!”

“That’s impossible,” says a gruff voice.

“He is,” says someone else, “He’s breathing.”

Dean groans, and opens his eyes. The crowd seems to lean in as one, and then jerk away collectively.

“Jesus fuck!” shouts the gruff man. “Your eyes! What’s wrong with your eyes, man?”

Dean musters the strength to blink, but already the worried faces are receding, pity replaced with fear and disgust.

“What is he?” one woman is saying as she leaves. “No one can survive a fall like that. And look, he hardly bled on the pavement! Someone should call the cops.”

“He’s the devil,” says another woman, voice high and powerful. “He’s the devil! Black eyes like that can only be a sign of Satan himself!” Dean can’t see her, but he has no doubt she is crossing herself violently in his direction.

The voices fade, and Dean shoves himself up into a sitting position. Around him is a pool of blood, but his body seems barely damaged. There are bruises and minor lacerations on his arms. He touches a finger to one of the scrapes, and his blood is cold. He shudders.

Dean remembers the sound of his back breaking. Now he stands, and looks down at another outfit ruined with his own blood. He’ll have to find another cheap hotel, repeat the clothes-stealing trick. He makes plans in his head as he walks away from his own death scene. Anything to distract him from what just happened. To distract him from the bloodlust that he can already feel surging up again.

God, he hopes Cas wasn’t listening.

\---

Castiel can barely hear himself think over the booming sound of AC/DC . Sam has been blaring it for the past two hours. Castiel thinks maybe he should say something before they both go deaf, but the last time he glanced over at Sam, it looked like the Winchester was crying, so it is probably a better decision to keep quiet.

Sam, though, doesn’t seem to agree. He reaches over and snaps off the radio, and the sudden silence rings in Castiel’s ears.

“Cas,” he says suddenly, “You care about Dean.”

“Of course I do, Sam,” responds Castiel, surprised.

Sam’s voice is rough, but not teary, so he has evidently gotten his emotions under some control. “Yeah. Listen, do you – aren’t you worried about what it’s going to be like, if we find him?”

“ _When_ we find him. And yes, of course I’m worried.” Sam bites his lip. He clearly has something more to say, so Castiel falls silent, waits for him to say it.

“I’m afraid he might have changed.” Sam stares straight ahead at the road. Castiel notices that his grip is white-knuckled on the steering wheel. “I’m scared he – I mean, he’s a demon now. He’s like _Cain._ What if he, you know, doesn’t care anymore? Like, what if he – if we show up and he comes at us with the Blade? What then, Cas?”

Castiel thinks before saying, deliberately, “We’re not going to hurt Dean. If you’re afraid that we’re going to get there and be forced into a situation where one of us has to kill him, don’t be. First of all, I doubt we could kill him if we tried. He’s already dead, technically, and armed with the First Blade – ”

This is not what Sam wants to hear, Castiel can tell, so he changes tack.

“Dean has the strongest will of anyone I know, Sam. If anyone can resist...whatever being a demon entails, it’s him. I promise.”

Sam waits, then nods sharply. “I know. I just – needed to hear it, you know?”

“I understand,” says Castiel.

He understands all too well. He can’t imagine what it must be like, being transformed into a monstrosity that you’ve been hunting all your life. However, he can imagine how terrible Dean must feel about it. Castiel hasn’t prayed to God for a long time, but now he moves his lips silently as the Impala bumps along the road.

_Please, Father, if you are out there…Save Dean Winchester._

It is an appropriately short prayer for the man who doesn’t believe in prayer.

“Nebraska border,” says Sam as they whiz past a road sign.

Castiel nods, and casts his eyes heavenward.

\---

They spend the night at a cheap hotel, the Red Dog Inn, after Castiel points out that Sam will no longer be able to drive if he forces himself to stay awake too long. Sam concedes, and before too long the Impala is pulling into a bumpy parking lot, the engine rumbling and then shutting off. Castiel gets out, and then Sam, and they enter the hotel together.

Their room is 131. “Corner of the ground floor,” says Sam to the receptionist, and Castiel remembers Dean mentioning the best defensive room location. The dark-skinned woman behind the desk slides them a couple of keycards and they carry their bags into the relative privacy of the room.

Sam falls asleep almost immediately, throwing himself on the bed and muttering something about “The sooner I rest, the sooner we can get going again.” He seems to have forgotten his initial reluctance to track Dean down and now is desperate to find his brother. Castiel sits in the room’s only chair and stares at the wall.

Sometimes it is tedious, not sleeping. Fortunately, tonight it means that Castiel is awake when his phone buzzes in the pocket of his trench coat. He pulls it out, checks the caller ID.

_Dean._

Castiel whips the phone open and holds it up to his ear. He casts a glance at Sam’s sleeping form and decides to take the call into the bathroom, to allow Sam his rest. “Hello?” Castiel asks, trying to keep urgency from his voice as he makes his way stealthily to the bathroom and closes the door behind him.

 _“Cas?”_ asks the voice on the other end of the line, and Castiel’s heart leaps, because it is unmistakably Dean.

“Dean,” he says in a rush, “Are you alright? We’ve been looking for you. Are you safe?”

 _“Cas, listen.”_ Dean’s voice is rough and slow. The initial spark of hope in Castiel’s chest begins to ebb, leaving him with heavy concern. _“I don’t – don’t want you and Sammy to come after me, alright?”_

“I don’t care what you want, Dean. We’re going to find you, and we’re going to take you back to the bunker with us, and we’re going to figure everything out.”

_“Please, man. Don’t do that. It’s not gonna work, don’t you realize that? Everything’s gone to shit, and gettin’ the gang back together’s not gonna fix that.”_

“I don’t agree.”

A pause. Castiel hears something in the staticky background of the call, something that sounds like a moan. And still Dean is silent, except for heavy breathing, which Castiel can hear even over the white noise that floods the line.

“Dean,” he says slowly, “What have you done?”

A chuckle. A low, dark chuckle, that scares Castiel more than anything he’s heard so far. _“Cas, I’m a demon now, remember? A demon. A creature from Hell.”_

“Don’t say that.”

_“It’s true.”_

“What have you done?”

When Dean finally speaks again, all the humor is gone from his voice. It’s replaced with an almost desperate tone, maybe regret? Castiel has never been all that good at identifying human emotions.

 _“I can’t control it, Cas. I can’t stop it. The First Blade does what it wants – it’s like I’m just a vessel for it, for Cain. There’s nothing I can do,”_ says Dean. _“I don’t know why I called you. Some things I…wanted to say, I guess.”_

“Tell me what happened.” The moan again, louder this time. And a sound, close to the phone, almost like a growl. Castiel tells himself that it does not come from Dean’s throat. But he cannot bring himself to speak again, can’t find the words as he stands silently in the bathroom and listens to the sound of rustling fabric, like someone moving, and then a wet _thump_ sound. It is accompanied by a strangled cry, and then quiet.

Castiel is panicking. “Dean. Dean!” he says into the phone. “Dean, answer me!”

 _“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”_ Dean’s voice is sad now, almost slurring as he speaks. Castiel wonders if it is the blade that brings on such abrupt mood swings. _“Tell Sam that – tell him I’m sorry. I can’t think.”_

“Dean, please,” says Castiel desperately, but the other man is still rambling, not seeming to hear the words.

_“They all looked like you, do you know that? Every one. Even the women looked like you. I thought maybe some of ‘em would look like Sam, you know, but I couldn’t stand that. I couldn’t stand killing Sam, because it would be real, understand? Like killing him for real. I could do that, I think. I could kill him. But I couldn’t – I couldn’t kill you, Cas.”_

Castiel can hear Sam stirring in the other room. A light clicks on, shining under the bathroom door. Castiel sees his own horrified face in the mirror.

_“I guess what I’m trying to say here is – what I’m trying to say is don’t follow me. Don’t come after me, because you’re not gonna like what you see. I tried so hard, Cas, to stop it, and I’m so sorry. You have to believe that I am. But demons kill people, man, and I'm a demon, and the blade wants me to, understand? I don’t – I’m sorry, Cas, I’m sorry – ”_

“Dean,” Castiel starts to say again, but the bathroom door swings open and the phone clicks, once, in his ear and he knows that Dean has hung up. He lowers the phone, hearing the dial tone fade away.

“What’s going on?” asks Sam, disheveled and frantic-looking. “Was that Dean? Did you get ahold of him? Where is he?”

Castiel only looks down and shakes his head.


	4. It's Just the End of the World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I haven’t experienced waning grace before, of course,” he says. “I should have noticed. But to be honest, I thought perhaps it was just grief.”
> 
> “Grief.”
> 
> Castiel misinterprets the look of vague confusion on Sam’s face. “Sadness,” he says. “Sorrow.” When the look persists, he adds simply, “Dean.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for all the positive feedback! You guys should know, just because I'm not responding to your comments doesn't mean I'm not noticing and appreciating every one. I have had people in the past get annoyed, however, with my habit of answering every comment, and I don't want to pick and choose, so I'm afraid that's what this means!  
> Anyway, here's the next chapter, a little bit longer than the others. I hope you enjoy it, because there are a lot of twists and turns!

There is blood on his hands.

He is not afraid anymore.

He stands and looks around at what he has wrought. The destruction. The carnage. It is minor as of now, but he has bigger plans. For the first time in his life, he feels truly free.

The blade hums in his hand, freedom incarnate. He smiles widely, feeling its weight warm and comfortable against his palm. The blade is his muse, the thing that released him from his guilty prison. He has been saved. Anything he wants, he can take, and no one will be able to stop him.

At some point he was sitting. He stands, and watches red drip from his hands onto the floor. It is not his blood; his blood is cold, and thick, and dead. This is warm against his skin and flows like water from his fists to the ground. He brings the hand holding the blade, his right hand, up to his face and drags his tongue across it. The blood leaves a metallic taste in his mouth, of iron and victory. His grin stretches. Yes, this is what he has always wanted.

In his other hand is a phone. The screen glows in the gloom of the warehouse, reflecting off pools of liquid on the floor. He looks at it for a moment, then deliberately tosses it down. It clatters, and he brings a booted foot down atop it. There is a crunching sound. He lifts his foot, and the phone is in pieces.

Casting one last look at the mess behind him, he heads for the warehouse’s back door, mind already spinning ahead to the next time he will taste blood. His hand leaves a red smear on the doorknob. The wood creaks as he swings the door open.

What was that?

He pauses, silent. The noise from the warehouse comes again, a faint moan in the near-darkness. He turns on one foot and tromps back in, not bothering to hide the sound of his footsteps. Whoever moaned will be in no condition to flee.

Movement in the dusky space beneath some boxes. He shoves cardboard out of the way and looks down at the source of the movement, a woman with light brown skin and black hair. Her blue blouse is stained with blood. Chubby fingers reach up towards him, eyes so dark they are almost black opening in supplicant fear.

He imagines meeting her in other circumstances. Imagines flirting, imagines the taste of her lips on his. The feel of her skin beneath his hand.

He imagines what her blood tastes like.

He bends over her, bringing the blade into her line of sight, and she begins to struggle, begins to panic. Her mouth fights to form words. “No,” she breathes, in a low voice, “No, please, no,” and he puts a hand over her full lips.

He blinks, allowing black to slit into place over his eyes. The woman’s eyebrows rise in terror.

“Look,” he grins, “I’m like you. See? Like you.” He points to his eyes with his free hand. “Nothing to be afraid of.” But he is not like her; her near-black irises end, and give way to white. He smiles and lies through his teeth. “No worries. Calm down. Breathe.”

He lifts the blade. “Breathe.”

Her choking cry against his palm. “Don’t be afraid.”

The blade meets bone and snags briefly between her ribs; he tugs it through as smoothly as possible, kindness giving way to a savage glee. “I said don’t worry, bitch!” he shouts while smiling, baring white teeth to the red of her blood.

He blinks and her face is Cas, is blue eyes wide mouth crying out in terror

That doesn’t work on him anymore.

He yanks the blade the rest of the way through her body and out, spattering red across the cement floor and the cardboard storage boxes. His animal happiness has faded, replaced only by anger. Why does that stupid angel have to show up every time he kills? Why can’t his old life just leave him alone? He’s free, he tells himself, he’s thrown away boundaries and now everything is wild and wonderful. He can do what he wants, he tells himself. He doesn’t need any angels, any brothers.

But if Cas’ face has thrown him off in his moment of glory, at least it reminds him of necessary plans he has to make. As much as he would love to get out of here and roar off to his next slaughter – he can drive as far as he needs to, demons don’t sleep – he knows that if he does, Sam Winchester will be right on his tail. His brother will not give up on saving him, especially once he sees the damage that has been done here. Sam will not abandon the chase, and this is why he cannot be allowed to continue it.

He heads for the door again, knowing he needs to leave the warehouse before the police show up, called by some weak-willed stranger and their fear of suspicious noises.

Sam will never stop pursuing him. He can tell himself that his warning call to Cas worked – because he does vaguely remember that, now, remembers pouring out his soul to the damn angel as if he regretted killing those people – but he knows that it will only make his brother want to catch him even more. To fix him.

He’s not broken.

And so, he leaves the warehouse. He lets the metal door clang shut behind him on the bodies of seven innocent men and women. And he hoists the First Blade in his hand and plans how he will use it to kill Sam.

Oh, yes, Dean Winchester has been saved.

\---

“Sam,” says Castiel, at lousy motel #3, which has stains on the painfully bright floral comforters and striped wallpaper that is peeling at the corners.

“Yeah?” responds Sam, flipping between the Food Channel and a rerun of some fantasy show.

“I need you to help me.” Sam’s attention is on him, now, watching him intently as he pulls a piece of paper from inside his coat. Castiel’s fingers tremble as he lays the page out on the table. Sam does not miss this. He clicks _Iron Chef_ off and swings his legs over the side of the bed.

“What’s wrong, Cas?”

Castiel bites his lip. Pain flares within him, pounding at the inside of his skull like…like…Castiel has never been good with similes, but now that he has nearly infinite knowledge of pop culture he thinks he can equate this pain to one of those cartoons where the anvil falls on the character’s head. “I need you to draw this sigil for me,” he says, pointing to an intricate design on the paper, “And it has to be done in my blood. But I’m too – I don’t have enough strength left to do it myself. Please, Sam.” Castiel produces a knife from within his trench coat, as well, and sways on his feet as he puts it on the table beside the paper.

“What’s going on?” asks Sam anxiously, snatching up the paper and the knife. Castiel sticks out his wrist, pulling his sleeve up with the other hand.

“Cut the vein there,” he says. “I won’t bleed out. It’s my grace,” he adds, seeing that Sam isn’t going to move until he gives an explanation. “It’s burning up and I need to reinforce it before it goes out entirely. Or else…well, I go too.”

“You burn up?” The crease between Sam’s eyes deepens.

“Not like a phoenix,” Castiel tries to clarify. “More like…I don’t know. Something on fire.” He searches for a pop culture reference, because he knows those make him seem more approachable, but everything’s a little fuzzy and he pulls a blank. “Quickly, Sam, if you would.”

Sam seizes his arm and draws the blade slowly across his wrist. Castiel breathes in sharply with the pain. Blood wells out in a red line where the knife has passed.

Castiel sits down abruptly on the floor. “Alright, now draw the sigil around me. As fast as you can, but make it accurate. It could mean the difference between, well…”

“I got it,” says Sam determinedly, and wets his fingers with the blood that is welling out of Castiel’s wrist at a steady pace. “Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier?”

Castiel watches as Sam draws the first line of the sigil, a bold stroke that completes perhaps a quarter of the outer circle. “I didn’t…put the pieces together,” Castiel says. “I was feeling rather ill, it’s true, and my head has been aching, yet I didn’t recognize the signs.”

“Didn’t recognize the signs?” Sam smears his hand across Castiel’s wrist again, and it hurts. At least the talking is a distraction. Sam completes another quarter of the circle, and a few of the thinner lines that go inside it. Castiel blinks.

“I haven’t experienced waning grace before, of course,” he says. “I should have noticed. But to be honest, I thought perhaps it was just grief.”

“Grief.”

Castiel misinterprets the look of vague confusion on Sam’s face. “Sadness,” he says. “Sorrow.” When the look persists, he adds simply, “Dean.”

Sam’s fingers keep moving while he talks. Castiel thinks it is lucky that the Winchester has deft hands and is experienced in painting symbols with blood, because otherwise he might be burning up while Sam watched helplessly. He really did leave this too far to the last minute.

“ – Know you’re sad about Dean, Cas,” Sam is saying, “I just don’t get how – well, grief can be pretty powerful sometimes. But hell, how did you confuse it with almost dying?”

Castiel shrugs weakly.

“He’s not dead, you know,” says Sam in a quieter voice.

Castiel doesn’t respond this time, only looks down at the design in blood that is beginning to emerge at Sam’s fingertips. His head swims. His grace – not his grace, stolen, poison – is burning at the base of his throat, like a hot coal.

“We have to believe that he can be brought back…you know. To himself.”

It’s hot and painful but so is his grief for Dean. Everything is lost. He did do it all to save one man, he knows that now, and if Metatron hadn’t been so right then he wouldn’t be feeling like this now.

“Cas, you gotta stay with me, okay?”

It would be so easy to give up. Sam’s hands have stopped moving against the floor and his wrist, instead rest on his shoulders, shaking him. Shaking him.

“Hey. Hey! What do I do now? It’s not doing anything. Cas!”

The grace that is not his is ready to _explode_ through the base of his neck, but Castiel thinks about Dean, black eyes laughing into broken Sam’s face, and he can’t leave. He can’t let the Winchesters face this alone. Castiel is, as ever, Dean’s guardian angel, and although it may be pure pain not to let go, he has to hold on for them.

“Plant my hand,” he gasps, “In the center of the sigil. Not where I’m sitting. The – the circle with the three dots inside it, put my hand there. And then move back.”

Sam’s strong hands are at his wrist, and Castiel’s palm touches the floor wet with his blood and everything becomes _bright,_ a cataclysm of white light that only lasts a second yet seems to go on forever. For a moment he wonders if he timed it wrong, if he is burning out now as his stolen grace floods out of him. If he is, then he is sorry, and he hopes Sam will apologize to Dean for him. He really did try very hard. _Sorry, Father,_ thinks Castiel, _but I don’t think I have accomplished whatever you have set me here to do._

Then the light is gone and Castiel is gasping on the floor of a third-rate hotel with peeling – and now very slightly blackened – wallpaper and bloodstains on the edges of the brightly floral comforters. Sam is sitting against the wall across the room.

“You okay?” he croaks, and Castiel looks down at himself before nodding. His grace is still a painful lump in his throat, but he can stand that.

“I will not be able to perform this ritual again,” he says, climbing to his feet. “We had better find Dean before that time comes.”

Sam pushes himself up with a hand on the wall, wincing when a section threatens to peel away under his hand. “Can’t you just, uh…you know, ditch your grace or something? Haven’t other angels done that?”

“I can cut it out,” says Castiel bluntly. “It would be painful and dangerous but it would achieve the wanted result.”

“Then why don’t you?” demands Sam, throwing his hands up. “I mean, no offense, Cas, but you almost died right there!”

“I have to wait. We may need grace, to restore Dean.”

Sam scoffs. “Demons can be cured, remember? We’ll chain him up if we have to, give him a few doses of human blood, and he’ll be back! That’s all we have to do!”

“Even as a human, the Mark of Cain still held sway over him,” points out Castiel. “It will be worse now that he’s tasted blood. Restore him to humanity, and the Mark will kill him again if he goes too long without killing. There’s no way out of that cycle, Sam.”

“And you’re saying you can fix him, with some of your angel mojo.”

“I’m saying we should retain all the options we can.”

Sam stares at him, then huffs and looks away. “Fine,” he mutters. “If you’re so hell-bent on sacrificing yourself for Dean, then go ahead. I can’t stop you. I just hope you realize that this is all you guys do – you just throw yourselves around, giving up your lives for each other.”

“I think that is a more accurate description of you and Dean,” says Castiel. Sam stops in the middle of taking a breath. He holds it, then lets out a sigh.

“You’re right,” he admits. “I’m sorry, Cas. That wasn’t very fair.”

“It’s fine,” says Castiel. As he turns away to go clean up, he thinks he hears Sam mutter something behind him.

“After all,” says Sam under his breath, “You might be able to love him better than me.”

\---

It’s raining again.

Castiel thinks it has been raining ever since they started on this dismal road trip, searching for someone who doesn’t want to be found. If he was going to be poetic about it, he’d say the sky was crying – but he’s not going to say that, because the sky is inanimate and has no emotions, and also why would something as huge as the sky care about one man?

The Impala rolls gently into Sterling, Colorado. They’ve been following Dean’s trail for close to six days now. Sam is grumpy and tired. Castiel can feel the grace that is not his bleeding energy from beneath his collarbone. All in all, they feel that they are further from catching Dean than they have been at any point during this journey.

This is why, when they pull into the Safeway parking lot, they are surprised to see him.

Sam spots him first. “Dean,” he chokes, and opens the car door almost before the Impala has rolled to a halt. Castiel follows close behind, and they both come to a halt about ten feet before Dean.

“He looks okay,” Sam mutters in an aside to Castiel. “That’s a good sign, right?”

Castiel swallows, his eyes fixed on Dean. The other man does indeed look the picture of health: smooth skin, no visible wounds, confident posture. But Castiel is not looking at Dean’s skin.

A blackness roils beneath the surface of Dean’s face, a dark, horrid cloud that curls and uncurls under skin that looks translucent to Castiel’s vision. He has seen demons before, of course. But – he hates to admit it, even to himself – Dean’s demon form looks worse than anything Castiel has ever seen. And Castiel has dealt with the King of Hell.

“Yeah,” he whispers to Sam. “He looks fine.”

“Hey, guys,” says Dean. He smiles, brief, terse. “Mind not chattin’ about me as if I’m not standing right here?”

Sam gives a nervous chuckle. “Sorry, Dean. Just – wondering what you were doing here. Wasn’t the plan to, uh, run away from us?”

Dean shrugs. “Well, you know. I got tired of runnin’. I’m not Forrest Gump.”

Sam does a little half-laugh-and-look-at-his-feet that Castiel recognizes as his anxious tic. But at least it’s something, it’s a decent icebreaker, and when Dean laughs too Castiel can almost pretend for a moment that everything is normal, it’s fine.

Then the smile drops from Dean’s face.

“Listen, guys,” he says, looking from one to the other somberly. “I, um – I’ve done some really bad shit. Like – bad. And I know I didn’t ask for this, I didn’t ask to get turned into a demon and all, but hey. That’s where I am now. And I decided – running isn’t the answer. We need to work through this together. Like family.”

He holds up a hand, forestalling Sam before he can speak. “I know, Sammy. We haven’t exactly been family lately. And I, uh, I agreed not to be your brother. But that was a lie, man, and I can’t keep living it. Now that I’m…like this, I think we all need to be as honest with each other as possible. So I’m gonna straight up tell both of you: I’m sorry for what I’ve done over the past couple of weeks. I wasn’t in my right mind. But running, actually, has given me some time to think. And I, uh. I think I’d like to come back to the bunker, and maybe…take a shot at fixin’ this.”

Both Castiel and Sam are speechless for a moment before Sam finally steps forward. It’s a hesitant step, but a step all the same, and Castiel feels hope bloom for the first time in a long time.

“Dean, you know it’s not easy for me to just forgive you like that.”

“I do, man. I know.”

“But I – if you come back with us, I think Cas’d agree that we’re willing to give you a shot.”

Dean grins and opens his arms. “How about a hug, little brother?”

Sam steps forward and the two embrace. Dean’s hands wrap around Sam, patting him heartily on the shoulder blades. “It’s good to have you back, man,” Sam is muttering, “Really good. I was so worried – ”

“I’m sorry,” Dean says, and Castiel feels suddenly like something is wrong. The Dean he knows would never be so open. Would never be so easily forgiving, not unless someone was about to die.

“Sam,” Castiel begins, loudly, and Dean pulls the First Blade out of his sleeve.

“Eat jawbone, fucker,” Dean hisses, and plunges the weapon into Sam’s back.

Except Sam is no longer there. He rolls, on the asphalt, and comes up a few feet away, gun in hand. “Dean would never just walk up to us with apologies and forgiveness,” he snaps. “And isn’t it crap, when the demon pretending to be my brother gives himself away by being _too nice?”_

Castiel’s angel blade slides out of his sleeve with an audible noise, and Dean glances his way for an instant. “Oh, Cas,” he scoffs. “Like you’re gonna use that on me.”

“I will if I have to,” retorts Castiel, but he feels far more uncertain about it than he lets on. Dean’s demon form is moving wildly now beneath the surface.

“Then come at me, angel,” says Dean. He blinks, and black slits into place. The sight chills Castiel to the bone.

He advances, angel blade in hand, makes a halfhearted swipe. Dean evades the attack and shoves Castiel to the ground. He rolls and hits his head on a red sedan, his angel blade clattering beside him. Dean is tussling with Sam, punching viciously while Sam grips the hand that is holding the First Blade.

“Don’t do this, Dean,” grits the younger brother, a bruise already forming on his cheek under Dean’s blows. “I know you’re in there still. Don’t do this.”

Dean laughs and punches him again and again and again, until Sam is lolling, barely conscious. Yet still his hand clings to the First Blade. Castiel can only watch in horror as Dean continues to beat his brother, blood on his knuckles and down Sam’s face.

“I never did love you, Sammy!” he’s shouting. “I always resented you! Dad cared more about you than me, cared more about keeping you safe and the memory of Mom that you represented! What did I have for a childhood, huh? I had taking care of _you!”_

“Dean, stop!” shouts Castiel, because Sam clearly cannot take this anymore. His lip is bleeding, and blood is pouring from his nose. But still he hangs on, and still Dean beats him.

“I never loved you!”

Punch.

“You ruined everything!”

Punch.

“I wished you were never born!”

Punch.

Finally, Sam raises his head. He spits blood out of his mouth. “Dean,” he slurs, “That doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we’re here for each other now, and we’re here to help you.” There is pain in his eyes, and for a moment Dean hesitates, loosens his grip on Sam’s collar.

Then his gaze hardens. He pulls back his fist.

And Castiel, Angel of the Lord, knocks Dean Winchester out with a swift right hook to the jaw.

“You okay, Sam?” he asks.

Sam is on his knees, gently probing at his battered face, but he nods. “We gotta chain him up,” he says, still dripping blood from his lip as he speaks. “Get him in the Impala. There’s enough demon traps in there to hold Cain himself.”

“That’s essentially what we’re doing,” mutters Castiel with some uncertainty. He helps Sam into the car, and he helps wrap chains around the unconscious demon that used to be his friend, and they drive away together, the way they came.

For some reason, Castiel doesn’t feel any better now that they have caught Dean.


	5. Sometimes You're Better Off Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel locks eyes with his reflection in the mirror.
> 
> Could he let Dean down?
> 
> No, he thinks, he probably could not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, I had this done last night, but couldn't upload it because of computer troubles.  
> Anyway, thanks again to all my thoughtful readers and your comments! I hope you enjoy this chapter, and know that you are very much appreciated!

The bunker is quiet.

It has been quiet before, but this is a new kind of quiet, one that hangs in an uncomfortable pall above the bookshelves and drips down into bedrooms. This is a quiet that whispers, _Dean Winchester is locked up in the space behind the records. He hates you. He’s changed forever._

They’ve been back for about two days now, and neither Sam nor Castiel has made a move to open the swinging bookshelves that lock Dean away from sight. They need to have a plan, says Sam, before they do anything. And Castiel agrees, but privately he thinks that they will never have a good enough plan, and that Dean is gone and that perhaps everything was in vain anyway.

And so the bunker is quiet, with disquieting thoughts brewing beneath the surface.

Just now, though, Castiel is not worrying about the atmosphere of the bunker, or Sam, or even Dean. Instead, he is bent over the sink in the bathroom connected to the guest bedroom – his, for now, and for however long he stays here – vomiting grace into the drain.

It’s not an experience he’s had before, and that in itself is disturbing. And it’s painful. Very painful. The grace burns Castiel’s throat as it exits and drifts slowly down, like mist, to the sink. There it fades into the porcelain. All very peaceful-looking, but if anyone was to hear the horrendous retching noises Castiel is making, they would have good reason to be concerned.

The episode seems to be passing, however, and the amount of grace that Castiel can choke out is less and less with each racking cough. Finally, he straightens up, brushing one hand across his numb lips. The sink shows no sign of disturbance, and he adjusts his disheveled trench coat. There is no need to worry Sam any more. Dean is enough trouble.

Still, Castiel is worried. He knows he cannot perform the grace-renewing ritual again, not without prematurely igniting the remaining grace inside him and burning himself out at once. Yet if he does not, he surely will not last for much longer.

He keeps returning to what Sam said, about cutting out his grace. His fingers slide along the base of his neck. Could he slit his own throat and extract the poisoned grace, if he needed to?

The answer, of course, is yes.

Could he cut his grace out when Dean needs it, when it could turn out to be their only unexpected weapon against the demonic blade that holds Dean in thrall?

Castiel locks eyes with his reflection in the mirror.

Could he let Dean down?

No, he thinks, he probably could not.

_“Ultimately, it was all about saving one human, right?”_

_“After all, you might be able to love him better than me.”_

Castiel understands the concept of love. He knows that there are different kinds, like brotherly love, and familial love, and platonic love. He has considered himself capable of loving comrades, in the past. He’d thought he loved all angels. He loved God.

He rubs his fingers across the base of his throat again, imagining an almost tangible soreness there, a throbbing ugly awareness of grace that doesn’t belong.

Castiel thinks, perhaps, that he loves Dean Winchester.

He doesn’t know what this means.

\---

Dean can feel the anger building behind his eyes. The bloodlust is creeping back into his system, after three days locked up in this damn bunker’s secret room without so much as a word from either Sam or Cas. Only the fact that they’ve taken the blade from him has kept the urge to kill from surging back immediately, but even that is hardly helping anymore. He wants to cut, wants to feel blood splash against his face, wants to watch the life fade from someone’s eyes. Instead, he watches a drop of water creep down the wall and imagines gutting Sam Winchester from end to end.

Three days? Hell, they never used to leave Crowley alone this long when he was locked up in here. And it itches at Dean, that he’s sitting in the chains Crowley used to wear. That scumbag. Not even a proper demon, has to shoot himself up with human blood.

Disgusting.

There’s a sound. Dean squints into the darkness of the room as if expecting to see something; there’s nothing, of course. The noise had been something like the squeak of a shoe on cement. Maybe –

The wall before Dean splits open, bookshelves swinging out of the way on creaky hinges, blinding light flooding in. He can’t help but wince, blinking black down over his eyes as some sort of protection. Ironically enough, it’s a bit like wearing sunglasses. Dean wonders if other demons have ever used their eye mojo for that kind of thing.

“Dean,” says Sam, swinging the bookshelves closed behind him, and now Dean can see again, “I’m going to be straightforward. If you weren’t my brother, I’d kill you here and now. But don’t think that means you’re going to get a free pass, because I will put a blade through your heart if I need to.” Cas is standing behind Sam, expression of perpetual concern already in place. Dean snickers.

“Metatron already did, remember? And here we are.” He can’t spread his arms because of the weight of the chains on them, but he tilts his head and regards Sam with a look of bemusement. The other Winchester scowls deeply.

“Then I’ll cure you,” he says, angry. “Demons are curable, remember?”

“And I’ll just go right back to this state as soon as I die,” counters Dean. “Which won’t take me long, since the blade exacts its dirty revenge when you don’t kill for a while.”

The crease between Sam’s eyebrows deepens. Dean straightens his neck and smirks. "So you see, there's really nothing to be done," he says. "Why don't you just let me go and be done with it?"

“Shut up, Dean.” Cas speaks for the first time, and Dean directs his attention at him.

“Whatcha gonna do?” he teases. “Punch me again? Go for it.” He sticks his chin out, offering himself up. No one moves. Cas narrows his eyes, regarding Dean with something akin to scorn.

“Oh, but that’s right,” continues Dean. “You’re not gonna do that, because you guys want me conscious for this. You wanna discuss what I’ve done wrong, try an’ find the empathy I’ve got buried behind these eyes.” The look on Sam’s face tells him he’s right. “Well, guess what? That ain’t gonna work, either.”

“Dean,” begins Sam.

“Sammy,” says Dean, mockingly.

“Dean, we know you’re just blustering. Somewhere inside, you’re hurting, and you’re letting the First Blade talk for you. It’s corrupted you, Dean, and as soon as you realize that you can start letting us help you get back to yourself.”

Dean scoffs.

Sam puts a hand up. “No, man, hear me out. I don’t care if you’re a demon – we’re still family. I know I said we weren’t, but I lied. We are, for better or worse. And I know you didn’t mean what you said back there. So I’m gonna give you another chance – demon or not, you don’t have to be like this. We can go back to doing what we always do. The family business.” He looks at Dean with something like hope in his eyes.

Pause. “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard those words, Sammy,” says Dean quietly. Sam takes a step forward, over the edge of the devil’s trap sprayed on the floor.

“We’re here for you, Dean. Me and Cas. We’re gonna help you through this.”

Dean takes a slow, shaky breath. Sam leans forward, almost unconsciously. Cas lingers behind him, but his eyes are on Dean, and his stance is tense.

And Dean laughs, a full-on guffaw. “You think I was gonna fall for that? Man, you are slow. Dude, I don’t care how many touchy-feely words you pull outta your ass, this isn’t changing.” He leans back as much as he can in his restraints. “And to be honest, I like it better this way.”

Sam’s face has gone tight again. “You do not,” he says.

“I do, actually.”

“ _Fuck_ you, Dean,” says Sam, with some feeling. It surprises Dean into another laugh.

“Watch the language there, little brother. Don’t wanna get too wound up, do we? Let’s not do anything we’re gonna regret.”

Cas takes a step up behind Sam, lays a hand on his shoulder. Says something, quietly, into the other man’s ear. Dean watches with a grin spread wide across his face. This, now, this makes up for the silent treatment he’s had to endure for the past few days. This is _gold._ Sam is so easily toyed with, it’s almost not fair.

“Do you want to hear what I did to those people in Ogallala, Sammy?” he asks.

“No,” says Sam, moving towards the exit. He looks bitter, defeated. Dean wants to ask him what he was expecting. Did he really think he could just walk in here and _talk_ the demon out of his brother?

“There were seven of them,” continues Dean. “Five men and two women. Best I could get on short notice, although if I’d had more time, I probably could have rounded up a whole bunch.”

Sam has stopped walking. One hand rests against the back of the bookshelves, ready to push them open. But it’s a twisted kind of curiosity that keeps him here. He wants to know what Dean did. Dean knows this, and allows his smile to widen.

“You would have liked the one girl. Pretty young thing. Five foot two, eyes of blue…how does that go?”

“Stop,” says Cas warningly.

“I slit her throat first,” says Dean casually. “Wanted to see if the blade could do it. You know, with teeth and all, being made of bone – I thought maybe it wouldn’t be sharp enough. Well, it did get caught in the jugular on the first try, but I figured out that if you really put your body behind it, you can slice right through, real clean.” He licks his lips. “She was even prettier that way.”

 _“Stop it,”_ insists Cas. But Sam – as tortured as the expression on his face is – says nothing. And Dean keeps going.

“Second was the man in the suit. He had a briefcase and everything – probably some worker at a fancy firm. Whatever. He died easy. Blade in the stomach, you know, gasped his blood out all over me.” Dean makes an exaggerated face of surprise. “Like he didn’t see it comin’, although of course the stupid fuck had just watched me kill the girl.”

Cas puts a hand on Sam’s back and pushes him towards the bookshelves, swings them open. “Get out of here, Sam,” he says in his gravelly voice. “You don’t need to hear this.”

“Gallant Cas,” says Dean. “Brave Cas. ‘Go away, Sam, your brother’s gonna hurt your feelings. I’ll take care of it – I’m an angel. I don’t have feelings.’ So, Cas, you wanna know how I gutted the biker?”

Cas turns around and looks Dean in the eye. “Don’t do this.” He shakes his head. “You know this isn’t accomplishing anything. There’s no need for this kind of…whatever this is, Dean. You’re above this. Even as a – demon, I’d like to believe you’re above this.”

Dean notes how Cas’ voice hitches at calling him a demon and files that fact away for future reference. “Dude had a nice jacket,” he continues, as if the angel hadn’t said anything at all. “So I took it off him, first, had him lay it out over a couple of boxes. Had him take his shirt off, too, for good measure. Pretty ripped guy. His muscles didn’t do him much good, though, when I pulled his intestines out.”

And Sam is gone, pushing suddenly away and through the bookshelves. Cas stares after him, then glances back at Dean.

“He had blue eyes, too,” says Dean with a smirk. “Like yours. Two of you probably would’ve gotten along well.”

Cas shakes his head with something like despair. “I thought you wanted to be saved.”

Dean blinks and lets his eyes go back to normal. “Guess you were dead wrong, angel.”

Cas doesn’t break eye contact until the bookshelves clang back together and Dean is locked in solitude again.

\---

He stalks Sam through the silent bunker, footsteps light, blade in hand. In the end, of course, chains proved no obstacle for him. He is more than a demon. He is a creature of death, a son of Cain, and metal cannot stop what he has come to deliver.

Sam pauses at the entrance to his bedroom, looks left and right. Behind him, Dean fades back into the shadows. Waiting. The patient predator. Convinced all is well, Sam sighs and walks into his room.

Dean shifts his grip on the ancient jawbone. Slips into the bedroom.

Sam’s back is to him, just a few feet ahead. Dean can almost hear his heart beating, taste the blood pumping through his veins. Sam is adjusting some item on his bedside table, an alarm clock. Overhead, a fan spins lazily. Dean’s breath hisses between his teeth.

At the end, Sam does sense that something is amiss. He begins to turn, one hand reaching for the lamp as a potential weapon. Dean is too fast for him. He strikes, the blade slashing easily through muscle and bone. Sam cries out and clutches at the stump of his left hand. Blood arcs through the air, illuminated by the cozy lamplight. Dean grins wildly.

“How - ” Sam chokes past tears of pain that are already welling in his eyes. He releases his bloody wrist long enough to make a grab at the bed’s comforter and yank a corner up to wrap around his stump. Dean lets him. The flimsy fabric will not stop the bleeding.

“Chains can’t hold someone like me, Sammy,” smiles Dean. “I’m no ordinary demon.”

“But the devil’s traps - the salt - ”

Dean shakes his head patronizingly and tsks a couple of times, something he might have been ashamed of had he cared what others thought of him anymore. Also, if he had not been preoccupied with killing his brother.

“You underestimated the power of the First Blade. Don’t do that. It’s really quite a remarkable piece of work.” Dean hefts the weapon in his hand and looks at it, admiring how blood pools in the pocks and scratches of the bone. “Now you’re paying the price.”

Sam opens his mouth to speak again, but Dean is done dallying. He stabs forward, shoving the blade into Sam’s chest. Bones crack and blood spurts all over the clean bedroom walls. Red spots the comforter and the lampshade. Sam jerks and gasps as Dean hugs him close, resting his chin on his brother’s shoulder.

“This was a long time coming,” he whispers, and then shoves Sam away. His brother’s limp body spins as it goes down, thumping into the nightstand and then landing in a half-sprawl propped up against the bed. Sam’s eyes are already beginning to glaze over, but his mouth still works, struggling to get out some last words.

“Don’t bother with any last wishes,” scoffs Dean.

Sam coughs, blood pouring from his mouth. A stain of red spreads out from where the stump of his wrist rests on the carpet. Yet somehow, with a herculean force of effort, he moves his mouth and forms rough words.

“Dean,” says Sam, “I forgive you.”

And he dies.

Dean stands over the body, feeling suddenly hollow in his victory. Damn his brother. Damn Sam’s ability to make even the most triumphant of moments taste sour and worthless.

“You forgive me, huh?” he grits out. He kicks the body; his foot thuds disappointingly into Sam’s ribs. “What the hell does that mean? You forgive me. Bullshit.”

He turns to leave. At least one thing will be accomplished with Sam’s death; Dean can get out of this godforsaken bunker. But the door is filled by an all-too-familiar presence, one that Dean failed to recognize would be attracted by Sam’s screams. His grip tightens on the blade. His eyes narrow, and go black.

“Hello, Dean.”

The words are familiar, but the tone is flat and angry. Something lurks behind the words, like a warning bell, a wisp of smoke heralding the arrival of flame. Dean senses that he has gone too far this time, that something Cas has been harboring for a long time has just died, and that there will be no mercy. Not today. Sam’s corpse is evidence enough of that. Yet Dean cannot muster the same righteous anger that he felt killing Sam. Instead, he looks at Cas’ drawn, furious face and does not look forward to plunging the blade through his guts.

There are no more words. Two were enough - how is Dean to explain why he has murdered his brother, who lies dead behind him in a pool of his own blood? How is Cas to explain the last vestiges of his hope for Dean’s humanity fleeing? How is either of them to explain that they do not want to kill the other, that every bone in their respective bodies strains against it, but that it is the only possible outcome for this scenario?

Cas takes a step forward.

Dean has the jawbone. Cas, an angel blade. Both of them know who is bound to lose here, whose body is doomed to lie on the carpeted floor beside Sam’s, eyes open and unseeing. Both of them pretend not to know it.

Dean takes a step forward.

Fate draws the two of them together, although this is not how it was supposed to happen.

Dean does not wake up, because demons do not sleep. He has not been dreaming. When he opens his eyes, however, the grey walls of his prison seem smaller than before, duller. His body is flushed with adrenaline. He should still be in that other room, with Sam dead at his feet and Cas approaching for the end of things.

He tries to stretch sore muscles, and only rattles chains.

When he struggles to recapture the feeling of his not-quite-dream, he can only think of Cas, and the grim look on the angel’s face as he stepped towards Dean. White knuckles on a silvery angel blade. Anger in his eyes, and something lost, an opportunity that Dean never cashed in on. What was that opportunity? What has Cas been offering, silently, patiently?

 _Damn_ imagination.


	6. Pulling the Trigger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Cas,” he says finally, “Do you love him?”
> 
> Castiel’s heart skips a beat, but he keeps his expression neutral. “Of course I do,” he replies calmly. “He said we were family. That is what family does, correct?”
> 
> Sam looks up, meets Castiel’s gaze.
> 
> “Yes,” he says, “But do you _love_ him?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this chapter was a bit of a doozy to write! More twists, and if you were wondering if Crowley's cameo in this fic was going to be as brief as his part in the beginning, well...it's not.  
> Hope you enjoy reading, and remember, your feedback is always much appreciated!

There is someone in the shadows. How long they’ve been there, Dean doesn’t know. He can’t see them, or hear them breathing. But he knows there is someone there. And so, by process of elimination, he knows who it is.

“Hello, Crowley,” he greets the other demon. “No need to lurk in the shadows, man - you’re among your kind.” He speaks with a sneer.

Crowley takes a step forward. Dean supposes that, were the lone light bulb above his head burning, Crowley’s face would have just been illuminated in a dramatic reveal. Instead, the King of Hell becomes a slightly less obscured figure in the darkness. The only light in the room comes fuzzily from under the swinging bookshelves, and even that is faint enough.

“Still snarky as ever, I see, Squirrel.” Crowley shoves his hands into his pockets and stands with his feet slightly apart. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get down to business with a minimum of sniping at each other.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “No insults? Wow, you really do want to speed this up. Worried someone’s angel ears are gonna find our conversation?”

Now it’s Crowley’s turn to look momentarily scornful. “Or human ears. Your angel isn’t the only one with hearing in this bunker, you know.”

Dean shrugs, and his chains rattle. Crowley frowns sharply. “Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?” asks Dean, lazily tilting his head. “Sometimes a guy likes to stretch his limbs a little, especially when he’s been chained up for three days. I’d think you’d have some empathy for my situation.”

Crowley sighs in frustration. “Fine, if you must. Just - do it quietly.” He waits for a moment before continuing, “If you’re done with the witty comments, I have an offer for you.”

Dean is silent for once, indicating that Crowley go ahead.

“I know you were going to use the First Blade to kill me, back when you were human. But I can forgive that. Now that you can see the world as I do, you’ve got a fresh start ahead of you. So - I’ve come to give you a second chance.”

Dean cultivates a bored expression, just to antagonize Crowley. Inwardly, however, he’s wondering what the King of Hell has to offer him. Freedom from these chains? Sam dead? Because he’s sure he can accomplish those on his own eventually.

“I want you to be one of my Knights,” says Crowley. He stops and regards Dean, as if he’s expecting a reaction.

Dean disappoints him. “A Knight,” he repeats slowly. Crowley sighs with a long-suffering air.

“Yes, Dean. A Knight. I find myself with an opening, lately, thanks to your hand, and so I thought perhaps - ”

“What makes you think I’d be interested in any of your stinkin’ business? From what it seems to me, you’re none too great at running Hell if you have to keep enlisting my help. And you’re still on the human blood, aren’t you? I’d kick that, if I were you. It’s a pretty big weakness to have.”

“You done?” asks Crowley, narrowing his eyes. “I’d remind you not to toy with me, Dean.”

“I’m not toying with you.”

“Then _stop making a fool out of yourself and take this seriously for one second!”_ Crowley’s bellow echoes for a few seconds in the small room. Dean can’t properly make out his face in the darkness, but he’d bet money that it is a particularly interesting shade of red right about now.

“I am taking this seriously,” says Dean. “I don’t want anything to do with you. First of all, you lied to me about what the blade would do - ”

“I never lied.”

“You avoided the truth.” Crowley shrugs, conceding the point. Dean continues, his voice rising in volume. “Basically, you fucked me over. And even though, in a roundabout way, I’m glad you did, that doesn’t mean I like you.”

“That’s not very - ”

“Shut up, Crowley. What kind of King of Hell are you, anyway? You shoot up with human blood. You’re an addict, not a leader. How long has it been since you’ve done anything demon-like? Or is it enough for you now just to hang out in seedy bars looking suave and riding a high?”

There is rage in Crowley’s face, rage that would terrify almost anyone alive. But Dean Winchester is not alive, and he is not afraid of Crowley anymore. “I’m stronger than you!” he shouts. “I can kill _anything_ with the First Blade! I can kill you! So if you think I need you to get out of these chains, out of this room, you think I want to be a part of your power structure, you’re _damn wrong!”_

Crowley’s eyes are red. Dean isn’t sure when that happened, but he can see them glint in the darkness and he knows that Crowley is almost beyond all control. One more nudge, and he will snap.

“If I wanted to be King, Crowley,” says Dean quietly, “I would take it from you.”

Crowley raises one hand, intent evident in the way his fingers curl into furious claws.

“Do it,” says Dean. “Kill me. And when I wake up, I’ll come after you. You’ll never have a peaceful moment again.”

The King of Hell reaches out. Dean feels the stirrings of demonic power in the air, beginning to twist and focus on him, and for one second he wonders if he has made a terrible mistake. He has never, after all, seen Crowley focus his full power on something. Already the air grows heavy with death, and with one swift movement Crowley cocks his hand, and Dean feels a moment of pure, impossibly agonizing pain, and then the bookshelves swing open and Crowley is gone, vanished in an instant with a snarl of hatred. The pain lifts from Dean and he can’t help a sigh of relief.

Cas stands in the entrance. “What is going on here?” he demands.

“Nothing,” says Dean, grinning and trying to keep the shakiness out of his voice. “Nothing at all.”

\---

Castiel, sitting at the table with his head in his hands.

Sam, folders spread out in front of him, paging through a dissertation on demons. “It’s the only option,” he says. “We cure him, or we let him rot in there forever.”

“It won’t work, Sam,” says Castiel, fighting past the pain in his head to deliver a response. “You heard him. The First Blade will kill him if he doesn’t keep it satisfied with blood.”

“Yeah, but after how long?” counters Sam. He puts down the folder a moment and sighs. “Look, Cas, I know you don’t want to hurt Dean, even when he’s like this. But if we could have him back in his right mind, just for a little while, wouldn’t it be worth it? He might be able to give us a better idea of how to destroy the Mark.”

“You don’t know that he’ll survive long enough to give us that information. He has been locked up for five days now. During that time, he hasn’t been killing anyone. Maybe the Mark will just break him as soon as he becomes human, and then he’ll be a demon again and all we’ll have done is put him through more pain.” Castiel’s voice rises towards the end, and he looks down, dropping his head back into his hands. “I’m sorry, Sam. I just don’t think it’s going to work.”

“If - if we have to, we can cure him as many times as we need.”

Castiel lifts his head again, and Sam is looking away, fingers seizing on another folder and picking it up. Opening it.

“That’s your solution,” says Castiel.

“Well,” starts Sam, but Castiel doesn’t let him finish.

“Your solution is to cure Dean and let him die, over and over again, until we can figure out how to get him free of the Mark. How is that supposed to help?” The pounding in his head increases. “By the time we finally save him, he’ll be broken. Do you know what it’s like, to die over and over, to be brought back from being a demon again and again until you don’t know what is real anymore? Well, I don’t, and I know for a fact that I wouldn’t want to find out. I would never do that to Dean.”

There is a long pause in the conversation, during which Castiel fixes an intense stare on Sam and Sam pretends to be skimming the folder of demon information that he holds before him.

“Cas,” he says finally, “Do you love him?”

Castiel’s heart skips a beat, but he keeps his expression neutral. “Of course I do,” he replies calmly. “He said we were family. That is what family does, correct?”

Sam looks up, meets Castiel’s gaze.

“Yes,” he says, “But do you _love_ him?”

Castiel has never been very familiar with human emotions. He has loved God. He has loved his fellow angels. This kind of love, he thinks, is different. This is the kind where you want to kiss someone, where you want to touch their hand just to feel the warmth of their skin. This is the kind where you stand extra close to someone and, if your arms brush, you blame it on coincidence but inside you are exhilarated. This is the kind where Dean smiles at you and you are happier than you have ever been in your life.

If that is love, then Castiel has been in love for a long time.

He looks away. Sam takes a breath, delicately.

“Well,” he says, “When you love someone, sometimes you have to decide to do something that will hurt them, in order to save them in the long run.”

“Sometimes,” says Castiel, “You have to know where to draw the line.”

His head aches. Sam looks at him for a long time, but Castiel does not make eye contact again. If he does, he feels that Sam will see right through him, and all his transgressions will be laid bare.

Angels do not fall in love.

“Dean would understand,” says Sam, and Castiel thinks _Yes, he would, because he would sacrifice everything not to be what he has become. He would welcome the pain, would welcome death, if it would make him not a demon._

But Castiel is selfish.

“I don’t,” he says quietly, and he knows without looking that Sam will not be able to meet his gaze.

\---

“What the hell are you doing?” Dean demands. Sam ignores him, unlocking the chains from Dean’s small, metal chair.

“Don’t try anything,” Sam grits through his teeth as he stands Dean up and marches him out of the room. Dean doesn’t know what he is supposed to try; he is, after all, still wearing a heap of chains engraved with devil’s traps.

“Where are we going?” asks Dean as the bunker door closes behind them. Cas is standing up ahead, next to the Impala. He looks unsteady, sad. “What’s going on, Cas?” The angel only shakes his head.

As the Impala bumps over dirt roads, Dean attempts conversation several more times. Each time he is shot down. Finally, he gives up, and focuses on watching the terrain out the window. It’s not very interesting: mostly grass, a couple trees. Some dust.

It’s when they arrive at their destination that Dean knows what is happening.

“Oh, no,” he says as Sam drags him into the old church and shoves him down into another chair, locking his chains around it. “No, you’re not gonna try this. I told you, remember? It’s not gonna work, Sammy.”

Sam only steps away, mouth drawn in a straight line. An intricate devil’s trap is already painted on the floor; Dean’s chair is at the center of it. He frowns, feeling the First Blade’s absence more than ever.

Sam approaches, syringe in hand, and Dean eyes the red liquid within. “No,” he says loudly. “Not you, Sam.”

Sam hesitates. “What do you mean, not me?” he asks coldly. “I don’t think you’re the one calling the shots here.”

“I’ll struggle,” says Dean. He raises his chin in defiance. “I’ll put up a fight. I’ll jerk my head around and you’ll have to hold me down, which will be a hell of a pain for you. Or Cas can give it to me.”

Cas, who is standing at the edge of the devil’s trap, the toes of his shoes inching over the red-painted line, doesn’t look like he agrees with this idea. Sam weighs the syringe in one hand and looks at Dean with an odd expression.

“Alright,” he says finally. “I don’t see what harm it could do.” And as he passes the needle over to the angel, he murmurs, “Sorry, Cas.”

The first shot of blood hurts. “Ouch,” says Dean, and then, “Mother _fucker,”_ as the injected blood burns through his veins. He hadn’t thought about the implications of adding consecrated blood to a dead and damned body, but now he grits his teeth and thinks maybe he should have. Why the hell would Crowley enjoy this?

“One hour,” says Sam. He clicks on a stopwatch.

Cas won’t meet Dean’s eyes.

The second shot is doubly painful, since it brings back the stinging and burning that is just fading away from the first dose. “Why does this have to hurt?” whines Dean, looking up at Cas.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” says Cas. Up close, Dean can see that he looks worn. There’s something in his eyes - if Cas were human, Dean would say that he hasn’t been sleeping, but angels don’t sleep. Still, he looks…tired.

Why does Dean care? He brings his mind back to the matter at hand: being annoying.

“I wonder if angel blood works for this sort of thing,” he grins up at Cas.

Cas seems to realize that he has been standing over Dean for several moments too long, now. He pulls the needle out and retreats to where Sam is clicking the stopwatch again.

One hour.

By the third shot, Dean thinks he can feel the consecrated blood eating away at him. He remembers doing this to Crowley, and wonders if he still would have done it if he’d known at the time what a cruel process it was.

Yeah, of course he would have. Crowley is a bastard and Dean was a good hunter. Now, he is a good demon - or at least he figures he’s going to be for the next five hours.

“Where’s the apology this time?” he parrots to Cas.

Fourth shot.

Dean’s hands are chained to the arms of the chair, but he still manages to snag the edge of Cas’ trench coat as the angel turns to walk away from him. “What are you gaining from this?” he insists, feeling the blood burning through him. “Do you _enjoy_ my pain?”

There, he’s hit a nerve. Something buckles in Cas’ face for just a moment, allowing a colossal sadness to show through. Then the façade is back, the expressionless angel mask.

“Of course not,” says Cas.

“Yeah, well fuck you,” says Dean, because he’s feeling kind of heady and he doesn’t have any more witty retorts. He lets go of the fabric clenched between his fingers. Cas walks away again. Always walking away, thinks Dean. Always the adios.

One hour.

Fifth shot.

Dean can feel something like emotion bubbling in him, and he hates it. He hates it because he doesn’t want to go back to the way he was before, weak and repressed. He likes it this way. He wants to be able to keep on killing people, the way he’s always wanted to. Hasn’t he?

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” he’s saying out loud, with resolution. “I wanted this. This is freedom. The blade freed me and you’re taking it away. Whose idea was this?”

“Mine,” says Sam quietly. His eyes meet Dean’s across the edge of the devil’s trap.

“Well, you’re ruining everything as usual, little brother. Couldn’t you let well enough alone for once?”

The next hour flies by in a blur, and Dean isn’t sure what he says during that time, but Sam and Cas don’t seem happy with it. Cas has a dour expression on his face as he administers the sixth dose of blood, Dean tilting his head obediently for the shot. Funny, he thinks, didn’t it take Crowley longer than this to succumb? Probably it’s a remnant of Dean's humanity betraying him, stabbing him in the back and weakening him to the consecrated blood. A part of him that hasn’t died yet. But he is dead, he remembers dying, with Metatron’s blade in his heart and Cas’ face in his mind.

Wait. No. Cas was the one who died, and Dean killed him. Seven times over, almost eight, but the man in the alley ran.

No.

“I thought about killing you, Sammy,” says Dean. “Imagined it, actually. You went down easy. I could take you.”

“Two more shots, and this is all over,” says Sam. “You’ll make it.”

“I hate you,” says Dean, but inwardly he is doubting himself. There is no more conviction in his words than in Sam's when he says, "I don't believe you."

Seventh shot.

The world swims. Sam, standing against the wall of the church. Leaning. His hands are in his pockets and his eyes are on Dean, but his eyes are cold, unforgiving. Weird, thinks Dean, he’d thought he was forgiven.

 _“Dean,"_ he said, _"I forgive you,”_ and Sam died. Didn’t he die?

Cas, just at the edge of the circle drawn on the floor. Something in his eyes. Something lost, something offered. Dean struggles towards comprehension, wonders what he is trying to find. Is there something he wants from Cas? Something Cas wants from him?

His mouth moves and words flood out, but they don’t mean anything anymore. Babble.

“They all looked like you. I shouldn’t have killed them, Cas, but they were so pretty when they were dead. Like blood halos. You know. Angels, every one, even the guy with the jacket and the white shirt and the brown eyes. He looked kind of like Sam, but when he died I made him an angel, you know? So pretty. I imagined his eyes were blue like yours. I think all angels should have blue eyes. Don’t you think, Sam? Make ‘em easier to identify.”

Sam is looking intently down at the stopwatch in his hand. There must not be much time left, now, until the last shot, and Dean is talking like he has to get it all out, like he has to say everything he can before his demonhood is taken away from him.

“Sammy, you said you forgave me, when I killed you. You know, not for real, because you’re not dead. It’s a pity. But anyway I wanted to ask you why you forgave me - although I guess you wouldn’t know, since you didn’t actually say it, huh?”

The stopwatch beeps. Sam clicks it off. Cas is approaching, with the inevitable syringe, and Dean has to speak has to speak _now_ before everything is over.

“I think angels are overrated,” he blurts, and he blinks and his eyes go black for these last seconds. “But you’re not, okay? Please, Cas. Don’t stick that needle in my neck. I don’t want it. I don’t want the pain back. It’s better this way, man, please.”

“Shoot him up,” says Sam dismissively, and shoves the stopwatch in a pocket.

Cas meets Dean’s eyes.

“Please,” says the demon.

“I’m sorry,” says the angel.

For one moment they understand each other completely, and then the syringe meets Dean’s neck and he is only a sad, broken man, slipping quietly into unconsciousness.


	7. The Bruises and Contusions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I can’t let you go back to the way you were.” Cas’ voice rises as he speaks. “My grace is all I have to give.”
> 
> “Your grace isn’t worth anything if you die!”
> 
> “And I’m not worth anything if you do!” As soon as the words are spoken, Cas looks like he wants to take them back. His mouth opens and shuts, once, and then he turns away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! is mostly all I have to say about this chapter.  
> It's taken me a little longer than the other ones, because I wasn't happy about the beginning of it initially, but now I think I can say I'm very satisfied. I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

First, he tries killing himself.

His eyes fly open to a pale, cream-colored ceiling and a feeling of intense urgency. His fingers grasp for a blade that isn’t there. His chest aches with remembered pain, with the idea of dying. There is something wrong with him. He has to end it. He needs to die.

First, he fails to kill himself. Then, weaponless and confused, he sits up and surveys the room.

It is small, beyond coziness but not to the point of being cramped. He glances around, taking in the furniture: one small dresser, a nightstand, the bed he lies on. A window, with its peach curtains drawn to block his view of whatever lies beyond.

There is a man seated in a chair by the window. He looks frazzled and there are dark circles under his eyes, but he looks up and smiles when he notices the attention upon him. “Hello, Dean,” says Cas.

Second, everything comes rushing back.

Dean’s breath hitches in his throat as a flood of images and emotions wash over him. He’s panicking, sitting in a cheap hotel room staring at his own bloody hands. He’s grinning with savage glee. He’s holding the First Blade and there is a dead man lying before him, and he isn’t sure how the man died but he knows that he’s glad it happened. He feels furious, desperate, hopeless.

Then the memories stop, and he just feels sick.

“Cas,” Dean croaks, then stops. Swallows painfully past a dry throat. “What happened?”

He knows what happened. Part of him hopes he is wrong. But he watches Cas’ dark brows creep closer together and when the angel can’t meet his gaze, Dean knows everything he remembers is true.

“Dammit,” he whispers, leaning back in the bed again. There are pillows stacked up behind him, to keep him in a reclining-but-not-fully-prone position. “Damn. Fucking dammit.”

“Dean,” begins Cas. Dean whips his head up and looks him in the eye. Cas does not continue with whatever he was about to say.

“This is all my fault,” Dean says bitterly, glancing down at his hands. Clean hands, unblemished with the blood he has shed over the past couple of weeks. “If I hadn’t insisted about the blade - if I hadn’t been so anxious to kill Metatron - dammit.” He looks up at Cas. “I’m sorry, man. Sorry you and Sam had to bail me out of this.”

Cas looks so tired. He keeps his eyes averted and does not speak.

“Thanks,” says Dean finally, “For stepping in and doing what needed to be done. Honestly, I thought I was going to have to die to get out of that - but I couldn’t die, you know? So…thanks.”

“Don’t thank me,” says Cas. His eyes flicker to Dean’s forearm.

Dean follows his gaze. There is an angry red mark on the skin of his arm, an all-too-familiar shape.

The Mark of Cain.

“So it didn’t work,” says Dean, right about the same time that Cas starts apologizing.

“I’m so sorry,” says the angel, standing up and walking towards Dean’s bed. He knots his hands together anxiously as he approaches, a gesture that Dean hasn’t seen from Cas before. It makes him seem strangely human. “Sam and I, we thought - this was the only thing we could think to do. We, um. We don’t know how long you have before the First Blade starts acting on you again. We hoped that - ”

“No more ‘we,’” interrupts Dean. “How are _you?_ You look awful, man.” It’s true that Cas looks terrible; Dean’s pretty sure he could fit an entire wardrobe in the bags beneath Cas’ eyes. Mostly, though, Dean just desperately needs to change the subject.

“I am fine,” says Cas. “Sam is fine, too.”

“I didn’t ask about Sam,” says Dean, before he realizes how heartless that sounds. “But - I mean, I’m glad he’s okay.” It must be starting already, his spiral back down into murderous rage. He can’t afford to think about that. He can’t afford to think about the things he’s done, the memories of crimes that bounce around in his skull. Later, he will get to sorting through what he remembers. Preferably with a stiff drink or five.

Cas shifts an inch closer to the bed. He still looks terribly distressed. There is a sort of pallor to his face that is worrisome.

Suddenly, Dean remembers. “What about your grace, man? Did you chuck it? Are you…human?”

The way Cas’ eyes flicker away from him tells him all he needs to know.

“Dammit, Cas,” growls Dean.

Cas takes another step forward, and now he’s looming at Dean’s bedside, face twisting into a sort of defensive anger. “I can’t just cast out my grace, Dean! Not now, when the cure has failed! There must be something that can be done to help you, and without my grace - I would have nothing to offer.”

“You aren’t here just because you have something to _offer,_ man!”

“I can’t let you go back to the way you were.” Cas’ voice rises as he speaks. “My grace is all I have to give.”

“Your grace isn’t worth anything if you die!”

“And I’m not worth anything if you do!” As soon as the words are spoken, Cas looks like he wants to take them back. His mouth opens and shuts, once, and then he turns away.

Dean reaches up and catches his sleeve. He ignores the déjà vu, the memories of anger and uncleanness and grabbing the angel’s coat with burning human blood coursing through his veins. “Cas,” he says quietly, “You know that’s not true.”

“I couldn’t stand it - if I let you die again,” says Cas, and his lips move, but his voice is barely audible.

“I’m not your responsibility.” And Dean remembers - killing Sam, and his brother’s dead body on the floor as he and Cas were drawn together. And he wonders what had been about to happen, in that not-quite-dream. He wonders what Cas has been offering.

The two feet of space between them seems charged with energy.

Then Cas pulls away, fingers clenching into fists at his sides. “It’s not _responsibility,_ Dean.” And he’s gone, closing the room’s flimsy door behind him.

Dean finds himself staring at the grainy wood of that door in the sudden silence. He wonders why there is a door. Sam and Cas must have gotten connecting hotel rooms, thinks Dean, and the thought is so domestic and out-of-place that he wants to laugh. So he does laugh, he laughs until tears well up, and then he just cries.

Is it only paranoia that tells him he can already feel anger bubbling up again?

\---

Sam is frying eggs - or rather, he has stopped frying eggs, and Castiel is about to remind him that you are not supposed to let the meal start smoking and turning black - when their visitor drops by.

At first, Castiel isn’t sure what alerts him to the other presence in the room. He is just opening his mouth to inform Sam of his deviance in egg-frying technique when something feels suddenly _wrong,_ like cold water running down his spine. The throbbing in his head, which he has been ignoring for the past half hour, intensifies. These factors, combined with the feeling that the lights in the room seemed to have dropped two notches in brightness, make Castiel think that maybe he should let Sam off on the cooking and turn around. Turn around very slowly.

He turns around very slowly, and he looks into a very unwelcome face.

“Hello, boys,” says Crowley, but his tone is far from his usual sarcastic joviality. Behind him, there are three demons, each holding a knife and with their eyes openly black. Crowley stands with both hands folded behind him and a glint in his eye.

This, Castiel thinks, is not good.

There is a clatter as Sam drops the spatula that he has not been frying eggs with and spins around. “Crowley,” he hisses, hand going to his belt where he usually keeps Ruby’s demon knife. But it is not there, Castiel knows. He knows this because Crowley is holding up one of the hands from behind his back, a hand with a familiarly carved knife dangling from it.

“Looking for this, Moose?” he asks.

“What do you want, Crowley?” asks Sam. His hands clench into fists at his sides. “I thought you were busy with Hell.”

“Where’s your brother?”

The pit of Castiel’s stomach drops. If there is any situation where Crowley showing up is a positive thing, then this is definitely not it. Castiel thinks of Dean, lying exhausted in the other room. His eyes resolutely do not flicker to the door.

Sam’s, unfortunately, do. A toothy grin spreads across Crowley’s face and he steps forward, shoving past Castiel as he steps to the door. “Outta my way, angel,” he mutters, “Time to talk business.”

Crowley gestures to the door and one of his swarthy demons kicks it open. It slams against the wall on the other side, and Crowley marches through, demons in tow. _Useless display of power,_ thinks Castiel. _That door doesn’t even have a lock._

He follows Crowley quickly into the other room, Sam on his heels. Dean is sitting up in bed, looking defiant, but it is evident from his pale face and a hint of sweat on his temple that he is not fully recovered. Castiel casts a desperate look at Dean from over Crowley’s shoulder. Dean doesn’t meet his eyes, keeps his gaze fixed on Crowley.

“Should have known you’re too spoiled not to give up something you want,” he says, shaking his head.

Crowley takes a step forward, brandishing Ruby’s knife. “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way,” he says, “But both paths end the way I want them to.”

“What are you gonna do with that pigsticker?” mocks Dean, “You gonna kill me? I can’t die, remember?”

“You can feel plenty of pain, though.”

“Take a closer look, Crowley.” Dean spreads his arms, and his thin t-shirt stretches across his chest. Incidentally, Castiel thinks this is a _very_ bad time to be admiring the fact that Dean’s shirt is about two sizes too small. “Under the skin. Do I look like what you want?” He pauses.

Crowley squints, and a look of furious realization dawns. “You didn’t,” he grinds out.

“Oh, I did,” grins Dean. “Unless you want a human as one of your Knights, you might as well pack up the boy band and go home.”

There is a moment of tense silence. Castiel glances over at Sam, who looks to be somewhere in between fear and anger, raring to fight but all too aware of the way the odds are stacked against them. The younger Winchester is sizing up the demon next to him, the one wearing a vessel almost as tall as Sam and possibly burlier. He has a thick knife in his fist and a weirdly immaculate suit. Glancing between Sam and the demon, Castiel has the worrisome thought that if this comes to hand-to-hand fighting, Sam might not win that battle.

As Castiel is thinking this, Crowley chuckles.

“Oh, Squirrel,” says the King of Hell, the pet name rolling dark and ugly off his tongue. “Don’t you remember? You can’t die, not really. So if I want the demon version of you back…” He raises the knife. “All I have to do is…”

Castiel and Crowley lunge at the same time. The angel’s hand catches Crowley’s shoulder, just briefly, and his fingers claw at the fabric there - but Crowley breaks away. Crowley has the knife in his hand, and it plunges forward, stabbing at Dean’s chest. Castiel can’t look. He can’t look, at the last, and he has the feeling that he’s letting Dean down by not looking.

There is a _thunk._

“Cas,” pants Dean, “If you could stop inspecting the wall, we could use a little help here.” He scrambles to his feet and claps Castiel on the shoulder, and only then does it become clear what has just happened. Crowley is yanking at the knife, where it is embedded in the wood of the headboard. His face is red with apoplexy and behind him, Sam is taking a pummeling from the tall demon with the suit.

“I got Crowley,” growls Dean. “Help Sammy.”

Castiel has no time for more than a brief pang of worry before Dean launches himself at the King of Hell. And if there is an unnatural sheen in his eyes - and if Castiel hears him bellow “Time to pay, motherfucker!” as his arms wrap around Crowley’s waist - well, that is just the adrenaline of the situation.

Castiel’s angel blade drops out of his sleeve and he lunges at the nearest demon.

Who swipes back. Counterattack. Castiel blocks, and the demon’s knife scores a fine line along his forearm. Rips the sleeve of his coat.

Counter. Stab. The demon blocks deftly, but Castiel sees an opening and he takes it, driving his shoulder into his attacker’s side and knocking him off guard just enough to plunge the angel blade into his chest.

The demon spasms and falls dead.

Two to go.

The next few minutes are a flurry of action, pain, and the pretense that Castiel cannot hear Dean screaming in the background.

“You’re gonna fucking pay, you monster!”

Castiel barely avoids a swinging knife, backs up against the wall.

“You bastard! You evil son of a bitch!”

Block. Punch. The pain of a knife stabbing through his coat, tearing into the skin just below his ribs, but it is the opportunity Castiel needed. He ignores the pain and raises his blade.

_“I’m gonna rip you into so many pieces not even Lucifer would be able to make you feel pain anymore!”_

Angel blade meets hollow of throat. Demon falls, dead. Castiel whirls to help Sam and finds him already standing safe, chest heaving, blood on his face with the suit-wearing demon slumped before him.

For a moment, Castiel and Sam lock eyes.

Then they both turn - turn slowly, calmly, to face Dean. Dean, who is stabbing frantically at his own hotel mattress.

“Dean,” says Castiel, and takes a step forward. Dean looks up, eyes wide. Something wild stirs in them.

“Dean. He’s gone.”

For two terrifying seconds, Dean does not speak. Then something seems to click and he sits back on his heels in the middle of the now-tattered mattress. “Oh, yeah. Well, I knew that. He just - vanished out from under me. Bastard,” he adds, bitterly.

“And you were just…stabbing the mattress because…?” Sam puts in.

Dean looks straight at Sam. “Because I was so angry, Sammy.” He says it matter-of-factly, with a flat expression on his face. And that scares Castiel more than anything.

“I was so angry. I am so angry. All the time, Sam. All the - ” It is the first time Castiel has heard Dean’s voice crack. Dean stops talking, staring down at the mattress and pursing his lips.

Castiel smells smoke. The eggs are burning.

\---

Dean, sitting in a chair and watching Cas.

The angel is bent over a folder, blue eyes squinting at the words written there. There is blood on the torn sleeve of his trench coat, and another tear at his waist. The white of his shirt appears through the gap, like grace shining out from under the fabric. One of Cas’ hands is massaging his temple, almost absentmindedly, and Dean wonders if he is okay. He wonders if any of them can ever be called okay, anymore.

He looks down at the folder in front of him. Back at the bunker, they have access to all the Men of Letters' files and records. Sam has pulled everything that could relate to the Mark of Cain, or curing demons. However, since the demon cure didn’t work, Dean isn’t sure what good this is going to do.

Besides, he just can’t seem to focus on the words. Every time he directs his attention to the page, the letters seem to swim away, dissipating just as his focus does, until he comes back to himself and finds himself staring at Cas again. Or Sam. Or the wall.

During the worst lapses, he blinks and he is looking down at his own hands, coated in blood. There is a screaming woman before him - sometimes it is a man, or a child, but they are always screaming. And he reaches for their throat, staining their skin with the blood from his hands.

Then he blinks again and he is back.

This is why he is not researching. When he focuses on Cas, on analyzing the way his hair grows or the exact shade of the stubble on his chin, Dean can distract himself from the visions that want to come. After a while, he abandons all pretense of reading and just rests his chin on one fist, looking across the table at Cas and counting how many individual eyelashes he can make out. Cas doesn’t seem to notice.

“Hang on,” says Sam suddenly, and Dean jerks his head up, flicking his eyes away from Cas before the angel catches him staring. “I think I’ve got something,” Sam continues, oblivious. He stands, his chair scraping the floor as he shoves it backwards.

“What is it?” asks Cas, looking up from the papers he’s been poring over for the last hour.

“A sketch here - it’s kind of vague, but I think it might be of the First Blade. Or it could just be some witch’s jawbone, I dunno. Wait here, okay?” He strides away, some enthusiasm lightening his face for the first time in days.

Dean sits in a haze for the two minutes that it takes for Sam to come back and drop a bundle on the table with a loud thump. “Here,” he says, “Let’s compare.”

Maybe it’s because he hasn’t slept more than four hours over the past three days. Maybe it’s because of the sudden hope that clouds his mind. Maybe Sam is simply forgetful, and that is why he unwraps the First Blade on the table right in front of Dean.

For an instant, there is only need.

Dean leaps for the blade, hand slapping down on the table, fingers scrabbling against the wood. He catches the cloth that the blade was wrapped in and yanks it towards himself. Sam has realized his mistake, now, is snatching back at the weapon and shouting something that sounds very far away to Dean. Cas is running around the table, is moving, is grabbing Dean, wrapping his arms around him and yanking him away from the bundle and the blade. “No,” Dean is saying, because no, it’s his, and he wants it. He wants wants _wants_

Sam slaps the cloth back over the blade. It rattles underneath his hands, some inexorable force pulling the jawbone towards Dean - but Sam is too quick. He grabs the bundled-up blade and holds it tight, unrelenting. And because Dean still wants it, and his face is barely inches from Cas’ now, and hell he wants the blade he has to want _something,_

So he wants Cas.

And he kisses him.

Their mouths smash together, and Cas freezes, and Dean tastes blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops! Sorry to be a tease, but I just can't help myself with these sorts of dramatic endings. I'm afraid you'll have to wait until the next chapter to find out what comes next c;


	8. Give Me Envy, Give Me Malice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is simple, Castiel reminds himself. Dean kissed him. It lasted for a split second, during which Castiel did not move or breathe. Then Dean jerked back, apologized incoherently, and left the room at a pace very close to a run.
> 
> Sam apologized as well. Castiel doesn’t remember what he said in response. He doesn’t remember much, between then and now.
> 
> He remembers Dean, murmuring his name against his lips. But that is not real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Dean is an IDIOT and I'm very sorry for continuing to drag you guys along on tenterhooks. This chapter's kind of short and not very exciting, but I promise you it's necessary.  
> Thanks to Jelena for pointing out a mistake I made last chapter. Remember, guys, I don't have a beta reader, so your feedback is all I've got! Comments are what motivate me to keep going.  
> Anyway. Enjoy!

Castiel’s hands, cold, pressed against Dean’s face.

Their mouths are crushed together, desperate, wanting. Dean knows what he is doing; he takes control of the situation, moves his lips and tongue in ways Castiel can only try to keep up with. Dean’s skin is warm against his fingers.

“Cas,” breathes Dean, and Castiel never imagined his own name could taste so good, could sound so good. He leans forward and kisses Dean harder. One hand drops, slowly, trailing its way from Dean’s cheek to his jawbone, and down his neck.

Dean exhales. Castiel’s hand - numb, almost, from cold - seeks warmth under Dean’s shirt. His fingertips brush smooth skin, muscle.

It is heavenly, and Castiel does not stop to question what he is doing.

Dean, however, does.

“Cas,” he says again, and pulls away, resisting Castiel’s efforts to keep kissing him. “Cas, what are we doing?”

“The right thing,” says Castiel, out of breath. “The only thing.”

“But angels - they can’t do this sort of thing, can they?” In this moment, Castiel thinks he would probably renounce God Himself for another chance to kiss Dean, so the question means nothing to him. He snakes his hand around to the back of Dean’s neck, pulling him forward again, closer.

“You’re not. You’re not supposed to.” Dean is resolute, not letting himself be tugged back towards Castiel.

“Dean - ”

“I want this, believe me. But you can’t.”

And Castiel relents, withdraws from Dean’s space momentarily, although every fiber of him aches against it. His hands feel so cold, away from the heat of Dean’s body. “Why not?” asks Castiel simply.

“Because,” says Dean, and he blinks, and his eyes are black.

It’s not a waking-up thing, because angels do not dream. Castiel doesn’t gasp, nor do his eyes fly dramatically open. Instead he becomes gradually aware of another scene, another place, and in doing so he abandons the room where Dean is a demon and loves him.

His gaze refocuses on a row of files before him. His hands are very cold, he thinks fuzzily. Why are they so cold?

His head aches. It swims with noise and pain and Dean, Dean everywhere, Dean kissing him and Dean dying and Dean, the demon, holding the First Blade in one bloody fist. Castiel thinks angrily to himself that he doesn’t deserve this, he doesn’t deserve to be trapped in a dying vessel that is burning up from the inside. He certainly doesn’t deserve to be unable to focus because of some very unangelic feelings for a human.

It is simple, Castiel reminds himself. Dean kissed him. It lasted for a split second, during which Castiel did not move or breathe. Then Dean jerked back, apologized incoherently, and left the room at a pace very close to a run.

Sam apologized as well. Castiel doesn’t remember what he said in response. He doesn’t remember much, between then and now.

He remembers Dean, murmuring his name against his lips. But that is not real.

Castiel cannot afford this. Dean cannot afford this. They need to focus on finding a cure, and they need to find it before Castiel’s grace burns out.

His head hurts. His hands are so cold. His vessel is dying, and he will not cast out his grace. Not when Dean can still be saved.

 _Father,_ prays Castiel, _Show me what to do._

If passing out on the floor of the records room is a heavenly sign, then Castiel has been blessed with a miracle.

\---

“Supply run,” says Sam, when Dean asks why he is leaving. He does not say, _Because you and Cas are dancing around each other like awkward teenagers and I’m sick of it._ He does not say, _Because I’m afraid Crowley will come after you again if you go out on your own._ He does not say, _To get away from you,_ and Dean is glad, because he knows that to hear those words out loud would break him.

The bunker is quiet, after Sam leaves. Cas is probably holed up in his room. Dean stands at the bottom of the stairs and asks himself for the billionth time what possessed him to kiss Cas.

It was the blade, he tells himself. Every nerve in his body was straining towards the First Blade and since he couldn’t reach it, something had to come unlocked. But - no, “come unlocked” is a bad wording because that implies he wanted to kiss Cas already, and that can’t be right, can it? Dean is straight. He loves women, and he loves his brother. He doesn’t want to hold a certain dark-haired angel close and kiss him until everything is okay again.

He was out of his mind wanting the blade, Dean tells himself, and for some reason that manifested in kissing whoever was close. He’s lucky it wasn’t Sam holding him back, because that would have been even more gross.

Dean takes a deep breath and looks down at his hands. They’re shaking, barely, but it’s there. Yet another sign that he isn’t free of the blade and the Mark.

He decides to jump on board the research train to keep his mind occupied. His heavy boots clunk against the floor as he makes his way to the records room and pushes the door open. It creaks, slightly, like he’s in some horror movie. Dean scowls at it. His life is so much worse than any horror flick.

He steps into the room, looking at the shelves of files that ascend to the ceiling around him. “God,” Dean mutters, “Where the hell are you supposed to start?”

And in response to his voice, someone moans.

Dean is instantly on edge. His hand goes to his belt, but he hasn’t been allowed to carry weapons since the incident with the blade. So he curls his fingers into fists and moves forward, carefully, peering around the shelves. He skirts through the W section and steps carefully over a box of photos. Heart beating fast, he looks through a gap in the files and sees nothing. He advances into the Y section.

On the floor, pale as death and barely breathing, lies Cas.

Dean drops to his knees. “Cas,” he says, shaking the angel. “Hey, buddy. You alright?”

All he gets in response is a flicker of eyelids and an incoherent groan, so Dean decides to take it as a no. He pauses for a moment, unsure what to do, then makes a decision. Personal awkwardness be damned, Cas is clearly in a bad state and shouldn’t be lying on the hard floor of the records room.

Dean scoops Cas up in his arms and carries him, bridal-style, to Dean’s room, where he flops the angel down on the bed. Cas opens his eyes a little bit, at this point, and squints up at Dean with a look of confusion.

“Dean?”

“Yeah, Cas. It’s me. What happened?”

Cas frowns, as if answering takes an effort of will. “…Grace,” he manages, finally. “Will be okay…now. Thank you, Dean.” He tries to swing his legs over the edge of the bed, but only crumples forward. Dean grabs him before he can fall to the floor.

“Whoa there,” says Dean, putting Cas back onto the bed. “You’re not going anywhere for a while yet.”

Cas sighs and won’t meet Dean’s gaze.

“Listen, man,” says Dean, sitting on the edge of the bed. “You gotta cast out your grace. It’s gonna _kill you._ We’re not any closer to finding a cure for this Cain thing, and you don’t even know for sure that your grace would be able to do anything. So what are you going to lose by getting rid of it?”

“You, maybe.”

Dean looks hard at Cas and tries not to think about kissing him, about feeling Cas' lips on his. “And if you die, what do you think that’s gonna do to me?”

It occurs to Dean that this is not a very straight conversation.

Cas turns his head and finally meets Dean’s gaze. “Dean, tell me…what you meant. Yesterday.”

There is only one thing that happened yesterday that Cas can possibly be talking about, and Dean’s heart pounds as he thinks about trying to explain himself. “I’m - I’m really sorry, man.” He looks down at his hands. “I just - the blade, uh, did something and I didn’t really, um. Have control of the…situation.”

“You’re sorry?” And Dean refuses to look back at Cas, refuses to turn and see the pitying or amused expression in those blue eyes, so he barrels onward.

“Yeah, man, I’m really sorry. I can’t - uh, I didn’t mean for that to happen, and I know you’re probably super weirded out because that came out of nowhere, so…I’m sorry. And it won’t happen again.” Even if - in some fucked-up corner of his mind, where he isn’t sure of anything, especially his own sexuality - he wants it to.

“It won’t happen again,” repeats Cas. As if repeating things is all he has the energy to do. His grace must really be hurting him, because his voice is dull, almost sad.

“Absolutely not,” says Dean, still not looking at Cas. “I promise. Sorry.” He stands, clumsily, and leaves the room without glancing back.

God, that was a disaster.

“I’m sorry too,” says Cas quietly behind him, and Dean wonders what the hell _that_ means.

\---

“Thanks,” says Castiel to Sam, because without the distraction that Sam’s company provides, Castiel would be stuck lying in Dean’s room thinking about how colossally wrong he was. Wrong about Dean, and wrong about his feelings. It was, after all, just the blade and its effect on Dean that prompted yesterday’s kiss. Nothing more.

_“It won’t happen again. I promise. Sorry.”_

“…Not a problem,” Sam is saying, looking a little confused. In his hands he holds a stack of folders, research he is bringing for Castiel to do while he recuperates - although, as Castiel knows, there will be little enough recuperating going on. He is only going to get weaker as his grace burns out.

Sam clears his throat, and Castiel realizes he has not been paying attention again. “Sorry,” he says, giving Sam a weak smile. “Headache.” That is not entirely a lie, as his skull does feel as though Lucifer himself is pounding away at the inside of it.

Sam nods. “I, uh…” He shifts uncomfortably. “I just asked if, if you and Dean…you know…figured things out.”

There is a pain in Castiel’s chest and it is not because of his grace. “Yes, we did, Sam,” he says carefully. “It was all just a - misunderstanding. It’s resolved now.”

“Resolved,” echoes Sam.

“Dean has promised that the incident will not be repeated,” clarifies Castiel, and he can’t help the bitterness that creeps into his tone. Sam grimaces, because of course Sam has always known.

“Sorry, man,” he says.

“I appreciate your sympathy,” says Castiel, and he means it.

A lull creeps into the conversation, and Sam changes the subject. Castiel can’t blame him. “So,” says Sam, “If you insist on not casting out your grace - and that’s your decision, man, I’m not trying to convince you or anything - but it might be helpful if we had more information. Have you seen this sort of thing…happen before?”

Castiel’s brows draw closer together as he ponders the question. “Once,” he says after some consideration. “I don’t remember the angel’s name. She had fallen, lost her grace as a way to escape from Heaven. They sent angels after her, and she killed them. She stole the grace of one of them and rode it back to Heaven. I was…part of the patrol that took her down, although I didn’t really do anything personally. I was there, though.”

“And?” asks Sam.

Castiel presses his lips together grimly. “Her vessel’s skin melted. She’d had the stolen grace inside her for a long time at that point, and before our patrol could do anything, it burned her up from the inside.”

“That’s, um. I’m sorry,” offers Sam. Castiel shrugs, an effort.

“It looked very painful,” he says.

 _“I’m sorry. And it won’t happen again,”_ he thinks.

At the moment, Castiel can’t imagine anything more painful than that.


	9. Strike Up the Band

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This almost-death – his grace is burning at the base of his throat, yet he is numb to the pain – is the closest he has been to dreaming since he stole another’s grace. With his eyes closed, Castiel can see things he would not, waking. His brothers and sisters, happy. The gates of Heaven opening to let in all the tortured souls that let linger in the veil. Castiel dreams of peace throughout the world, and of a place where no one need hurt again.
> 
> Mostly, though, he dreams of Dean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sincerely sorry about how long this was in coming. My computer was getting a new hard drive and I just had no way of uploading anything. I hope, though, that this chapter can make up for the wait!  
> The next chapter will be the last, so if you have any comments to make, make them now! I always appreciate it.  
> Thank you!

There is a time, somewhere after midnight but before the clock strikes one, when the bunker is completely silent. Its walls are steeped in shadow, its floors receptacles of pooling darkness. All is still.

For some reason, it feels like a sin to break this silence. Dean tries to breathe slow and easy, tries not to add this sin to his list. His fingers shake, ever so slightly, where they are wrapped around a bottle of beer. But it is dark, and he cannot see them shake. It is the closest he can get to blissful ignorance.

In the stillness, he is angry. No, not angry – that does no justice to the infinite rage that burns inside of him. He is anger itself, the embodiment of bloody knuckles and twisted lips and soul-rending fury. Dean can feel the pressure building behind his eyes. He thinks about the blade, and he wonders where it is, because if he knew – if he knew, then he could bring it to him with a thought, could tear flesh and bone on a whim. He can see himself killing Sam as easily as he sits at this table.

He brings the bottle up to his mouth and tries to drown his imagination.

When the glass base of it hits the table again, it is louder than he intended. The solid thump only breaks the quiet for a moment, but it is enough to disrupt the pretense of peace Dean has been cultivating. He grits his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut against the barrage of images in his mind.

Of course, in the darkness behind his eyelids, they are only more prominent. Dean sees Sam, bleeding out on the floor. He sees a man in an alleyway. He sees a bloody jawbone clenched in his fist, jammed in a dying girl’s stomach, ripping her life away from her. He sees Cas –

Dean’s eyes snap open. He can deal with the visions of violence that make him feel elated and sick. When he thinks about Cas, he doesn’t know how to feel, and this is what scares him.

There is a footfall out there in the darkness. For a moment, terror overwhelms Dean, and he clutches the beer bottle closer to him. It is Cas, he knows, come to confront him. Dean imagines the angel’s brow furrowed, his mouth moving with condemning words: _Why did you kiss me? Why did you blame it on the blade? You’re a liar, Dean – the blade doesn’t deal in love._

Dean’s breath hitches as mind-Cas uses the L-word. That’s not what this is about. It’s about a momentary loss of control, an unexpected desire that was fulfilled in the heat of a moment. And yes, Dean can admit to himself that he wanted to kiss Cas. He just doesn’t know why.

“Dean?” comes a voice quietly out of the darkness, and it’s not Cas’ gravelly rumble, it’s a warmer voice, thick with concern.

Dean struggles to sit up straighter in his wooden-backed chair. “C’mon in, Sammy,” he slurs, and he’s only now realizing how drunk he actually is. He makes an attempt to control his voice the second time: “Welcome to the midnight session of Murder Addicts Anonymous. Don’t suppose you’ll be joining the group, but hey, maybe you can sneak in as a worried family member.”

Dean can hear the shuffle of Sam pulling out a chair and sitting down. He can barely make out the other man’s silhouette. Sam must lean forward or something, because the next sound Dean hears is the clink of empty beer bottles and Sam’s muffled curse as he struggles to catch them before they fall. Dean takes another swig from his drink and notices idly that he’s nearing the bottom. Part of him wonders if he could kill Sam by shattering the bottle over his head and stabbing him with the shards.

“It’s late, man. Why aren’t you asleep?” asks Sam. The clinking of bottles ceases as he gains control over them with his fumbling hands.

Dean tries to answer with a flippancy that belies his brooding thoughts. “I could ask you the same question.”

“I…couldn’t sleep. I went to check on you and your room was...you weren’t there.”

Dean’s mouth curls up at the edges. Of course he wasn’t there – Cas occupies that bed, weak and burning up from the inside. _What did you expect, Sam, that I would be curled up next to him?_ But Dean knows that is not the tactful thing to say.

“I couldn’t sleep either,” he says instead.

“Dean, you haven’t slept in a long time. You need rest.”

“Hard to rest, isn’t it, when you keep seein’ dead people every time you close your eyes?” Dean takes another bitter drink. Sam exhales slowly.

“Dude,” he says, and Dean can just picture the expression on his face, that perfect blend of worry and sympathy. But Dean doesn’t want his sympathy. “Dean, you can’t do this. You can’t – you’re killing yourself, man. Please, we just want you to take care of yourself.”

Dean shifts in his chair. He leans forward, banging his elbow clumsily on the table edge as he brings his hands down into his lap. “Listen,” he starts.

“I don’t want to argue about this, Dean.”

“Just hear me out, Sammy.” A shallow breath in, out. “I know you’re trying to put a brave face on, and I know you’re trying to be a good brother, but we all know that everything has gone to shit. I’m tainted, I’m – corrupted, by this Mark. I spend all my waking time thinking about the First Blade and what I could do with it. Damn it, Sam, I don’t know why you even brought me back. At least as a demon I wasn’t conflicted. Now I’m just – I’m dying again, for no reason, and when I do you’re going to bring me back again, and we’ll start the whole cycle over. That’s not healthy. And we’re not getting any closer to finding a cure.

“Cas is – Cas is dying. No amount of reassuring words is gonna change that. And he’s dying because he refuses to cast his grace out, he thinks he can still do something with it – he thinks he can cure me. The idealistic bastard. So he’s gonna die, he’s gonna burn up in that bed and we’re gonna be left here with me puking blood and imagining it’s yours.”

“Dean – ”

“No. No, it’s not gonna be okay, Sammy. You know how many times I’ve imagined just going out on the street, finding some guy, and strangling him? Just for the hell of it? Or – when I’m not dreaming about murdering you and Cas in cold blood – I think about pasting the Mark on that stranger’s arm. It can’t be that hard to find someone who’s worthy, right? So I find ‘em, I grab them in a nice handshake, wham. Their problem now. I would have absolutely no guilt doing that, you understand me? I would give them a clap on the back and leave ‘em with this hell. But I don’t do that, because I know you and Cas would never forgive me. And for some reason – that’s where I draw the line.”

His eyes are wet. Dean curses himself and insists that he’s not going to cry. He’s not going to give himself away with useless emotion, so he takes a swig of beer, but sometime during this conversation he emptied the bottle and now he’s got nothing left. He throws it, with a quick jerk of his arm, and the glass shatters somewhere out in the darkness.

Sam starts at the sudden sound. Dean hears the quick intake of his breath.

“Got any more inspiring words?” Dean asks wryly.

There is a long silence before Sam says no.

“Then if you don’t mind leaving me to my misery…” Dean leaves the sentence hanging, and is finally rewarded with the scrape of Sam’s chair as he pushes it back and stands up.

“I’ve got one last question,” says the tall figure, a dark shape in the gloom.

“Fire away,” says Dean, already reaching for another bottle, fumbling in the nearly-empty six-pack on the table beside him.

“D’you think Cas would approve of anything you just said?”

Dean laughs bitterly. “To hell with what Cas thinks. When he’s done dying for the sake of romanticism, he can come tell me what he thinks himself. Until then, I don’t care about him. He’s just another stupid angel.”

“Then why’d you kiss him?”

A long pause.

“Fuck you, Sam,” but Sam is already gone, and Dean is left with a pounding head and an empty case of beer.

\---

Death is almost like sleeping, reflects Castiel. He feels warm and the pain of past days is gone. It is as though he floats on clouds that cushion every limb. He can barely feel the mattress beneath him, cannot muster the strength to look at the walls that surround him. Dean’s walls. The thought gives him a little thrill of happiness, but he is so tired, and he prefers to dream.

He has experienced dreams briefly before, when he walked graceless among the humans. It was odd, then, but he liked it. Sleeping is a part of human physique that Castiel had expected to hate, yet it offered a strange serenity. A period of hours, during which time he did not have to worry anymore. Angels, however, do not dream.

This almost-death – his grace is burning at the base of his throat, yet he is numb to the pain – is the closest he has been to dreaming since he stole another’s grace. With his eyes closed, Castiel can see things he would not, waking. His brothers and sisters, happy. The gates of Heaven opening to let in all the tortured souls that let linger in the veil. Castiel dreams of peace throughout the world, and of a place where no one need hurt again.

Mostly, though, he dreams of Dean.

 _It won’t happen again_ has no place in these dreams. Dean is happy, his face open, smiling. Smiling at Castiel. Castiel smiles back, and the Mark is gone as if it never existed. They kiss, not under duress but freely, and Dean is happy instead of angry. Castiel clutches Dean’s jacket in his fingers, and Dean is happy.

It occurs to Castiel, vaguely, that this is too far. That he should cut out his grace before he dies from it, because his reason in keeping it this long has been to save Dean. And dying will not save Dean. Because Dean is…stuck, with the Mark on his arm. And he does not want to kiss Castiel, not ever again. And he is dying inside, just as he died before and became a demon.

But in Castiel’s dreams, Dean is happy.

So his fingers – which had stretched out during this brief moment of worry, reaching for his angel blade, to slit his throat and let out the rotten grace within – relax. They grab hold of Dream Dean’s jacket. Castiel smiles.

There is some sort of ruckus outside. Thumping, and shouting. Shouting in familiar voices. When Castiel hears Sam’s voice, however, he can only hear _“When you love someone, sometimes you have to decide to do something that will hurt them.”_

And from Dean, he only hears _“It won’t happen again.”_

So Castiel disregards the commotion, and ignores the part of him that remembers death, remembers the burning of a poisonous grace.

Outside the bedroom’s four walls, Dean’s voice bellows, “Leave him alone, you sick son of a bitch!”

But Castiel keeps his eyes closed with a smile on his face. He dreams. And Dean is happy.

\---

Dean spits his own blood into the demon’s face. “Fuck you,” he says passionately, struggling in his bonds. “Fuck you and everyone you’ve ever associated with, you god damn sadist. You – ” The demon strikes him in the stomach, and his breath leaves him in a rush. Blood creeps down over his bottom lip as he gasps for air.

“You bastard,” he wheezes, and is rewarded with another punch, and then he is too busy trying to get oxygen into his lungs to waste any more energy on insults.

“Careful, Dean,” warns Sam as he is brought into view by another demon. There is a massive, purpling bruise on one side of his face and one of his eyes is nearly swollen shut, but he still manages to wear that look of concern, of empathy. Dean is too busy hating Crowley and all demons in general to take notice.

"That's right, Dean," says Crowley from somewhere behind the two of them. Demons are marching them down the hall, deeper into the bunker. Dean doesn't know where they're being taken. He certainly doesn't know why. "Listen to what the Moose says. He's smarter than you."

"I'm not gonna be your Knight," grits out Dean.

The shrug is almost audible in Crowley's voice. "You'll come 'round."

They stop before a familiar door - Dean's door. Dean's heart thumps painfully as he looks at the plain wood and knows that Cas is inside. Helpless. Just waiting for Crowley to stick a blade in him, to slash open the already-dying flesh in a bid at convincing Dean to become a Knight of Hell. Dean wonders if he will agree, if Crowley tortures Cas.

He thinks he probably will.

He wonders if he will agree if Crowley tortures Sam.

There is a demon's hand on the doorknob, and Dean is pulled away from his ethical dilemma. He watches with sick horror as the demon turns the knob. A flat palm against the wood sends the door swinging open. Dean has a perfect view of his room, and Crowley, behind him, can see just as well. And lying atop the twisted sheets is -

"Don't you make your bed, Squirrel?" scoffs Crowley. "All it takes is some basic cleanliness. I suppose with no mother to teach you, you never learned how?"

Crowley's barb doesn't hurt, because Dean is too busy staring at the bed. The blankets are tangled, but empty. Dean glances at Sam, and their eyes meet, confusion passing between them at a glance. _Where's Cas?_

"Alright, toss 'em in," Crowley is saying, and Sam and Dean are shoved into the bedroom. Dean spins, turning to face Crowley, and is met only with a smug smile.

"What the hell are you doing?" asks Dean.

Crowley shrugs. "Going to find the First Blade. And then I'll toss it in here with the two of you, and see how long it takes before you...take me up on my offer." His smile stretches. "Try not to kill Moose, won't you? I've grown rather fond of him."

"Crowley, you - " begins Sam, but at a gesture from the King of Hell a demon yanks the door shut. It doesn't lock from the outside. Dean imagines a demon will be standing guard in front of it, to make up for that fact. Anger surges within him again, beating at the inside of his skull. He imagines wrapping his hands around Crowley's neck - no. He imagines sinking his teeth into the demon's flesh, tasting his dead blood and ripping him to pieces. And then, as Crowley's essence begins to flee his vessel, Dean imagines stabbing into him with the First Blade and ending this forever. A smile tugs at the corners of his mouth as he glares at the door.

His reverie is interrupted by a quiet noise. It's too soft to be a moan, yet too slurred to be a word. The noise comes from beneath Dean's bed, and Dean is moving to the source of the sound instantly, with Sam right behind him. He falls to his knees, hands still bound at his back, and looks under the edge of the bed frame.

"Hello, Dean," mumbles Cas. He looks paler than ever and there is some sort of shining substance dripping from the corner of his mouth. Except dripping is a poor description; it floats, this stuff, dissipating as it leaves Cas' skin and quickly vanishing into nothing.

Grace, thinks Dean. He turns his head to look at Sam.

"It's Cas," Dean hisses. "And he looks like hell. Quick, undo my hands so I can get him out from under there."

Sam complies, turning around so that his own bound hands can get at Dean's. The two of them are practiced at this, and in a matter of minutes Dean is massaging life back into his numbed fingers. He jams his arms under the bed and hauls Cas out. It's a bad sign that the angel can't offer any effort to help.

"Cas, are you okay?"

Cas looks up at Dean with red-rimmed blue eyes. He opens his mouth as if to speak, then shuts it again. "No," he says finally, and falls silent, as if that single word took too much of his strength.

Sam steps in. "Let's get him up onto the bed, Dean," he says. Only then does Dean realize that he has been half-cradling Cas in his arms.

"Sure," says Dean, embarrassed, and the two of them heave Cas up onto the mattress.

There is a long moment of silence, and then Sam speaks. "I think you should talk to him," he says to Dean, and gives his brother a knowing look before he steps away. The small room only lets Sam get about six feet away from the bed, but it's enough for a semblance of privacy. Dean's face is flushing red when he turns back to Cas.

"What's happening?" asks Cas from his limp position on the bed.

Dean scowls. "Crowley. Took us by surprise. We fought, but he brought too many demons, and now he's holding us prisoner."

"Why?"

"He wants me to be one of his Knights. Take Abbadon's place. Like I'm gonna do that," Dean spits.

Cas exhales slowly, and more of the bright substance flees with his breath. "My grace is burning out, Dean," he says.

"I know that!" answers Dean angrily. "You think I don't see it happening? I don't know why you didn't cast that damn thing out - it's killing you, and it's not doing anything to help me either!" He takes a breath to continue the tirade, but Cas lifts a hand slightly above the mattress. Dean takes this as a motion that he is supposed to stop talking. He bites his lip and shuts up.

"I am going...to cast it out," says Cas, and Dean wants to chime in with an _About time!_ but he is afraid that Cas' breath will run out. "With my blade. But there's one thing I want you to do...first."

"Anything," says Dean, and he means it.

"Give me the Mark."

Dean no longer means it. He doesn't breathe for a long second, caught by surprise. "Are you insane?" he says finally. "You're weak, Cas, you're dying. And once you cast your grace out - well, you're not gonna be dying anymore, but you're sure as hell gonna be human. And haven't you seen enough, firsthand, of what the Mark does to humans? I hate to say it, but if I couldn't handle it, I doubt you could. This is just more of you being idealistic and stupid and I'm not gonna stand for it."

"I'm not going to keep it, Dean."

Dean laughs, the idea is so preposterous. A surreptitious throat-clearing from Sam - who, he'd forgotten, can hear their entire conversation - reminds him that there is a demon outside the door. Dean lowers his voice.

"What are you gonna do with it? Is it just gonna fly away, repelled by your righteous angel skin?" He doesn't bother to keep his quiet contempt hidden.

"No, I'm going to burn it off."

A startled movement of Sam's shoulders brings Dean's attention back to him. "What?" he demands of his younger brother. "Are you agreeing with this impossible idea? I think if the Mark had been susceptible to tattoo removal, we would've tried that by now."

"No," says Sam, turning around. "Except that - Cas mentioned to me that he'd seen one other angel whose grace burned out. And he said, um, what was it? Their skin melted off first?"

"Correct," says Cas quietly.

"So if you think about it," continues Sam, "The Mark is located on your skin. And if that melts off, well, what's keeping the Mark there?"

"Sure," says Dean sarcastically. "And what's keeping your organs in?"

Sam opens his mouth to respond, but Cas clears his throat again. "Actually," he says, "I was thinking...if I cut out my grace before it burns all the way through me, in the middle of the process...then there's a chance I could still survive it. And the Mark would be gone for good - no one would have to deal with it again."

"A _chance_ is not good enough, Cas. You cut out your grace right now, and once we've gotten out of this Crowley situation, we'll look for another way to cure me," insists Dean. "Or - if we have to, a way to kill me. But we're not killing you. You didn't go looking for the Mark and the blade in the first place, and you don't deserve to suffer for it."

"It's my decision," argues Cas. He looks so fragile, so frail, lying among the mussed sheets, but the light that flares in his eyes is determined. "Let me do this, Dean."

"Why?"

"Because you deserve to be saved."

"And you don't?"

"There is a chance, Dean - "

"A chance still isn't enough!" There is anger in Dean's hushed tone as he leans over Cas. "It's not enough, Cas, it's never enough unless we're fully certain that you're gonna survive this! Because I don't - I'd rather have you alive than me."

"Give me the Mark," insists Cas, and Dean looks down at him with despair in his eyes. There is nothing to be done. Dean wonders if it has always been leading here, to the moment when Dean will have to live in a world without Cas and know that it is his fault. That he was given this angel and threw it all away.

And Cas is staring up at him with a sad resolution in his eyes, and that trail of grace is still leaking from the corner of his mouth, and there is no blood, it is all a very clean wasting away of life. Dean hates that. It makes Cas seem less real, and he is so real, is more real than almost anyone Dean has met. Dean wants to take his hand and squeeze it, feel the warmth of his palm, touch the rough stubble on his cheek and memorize it. So that when he dies it will still be real to Dean. So that Cas won't just become another porcelain angel on Dean's mother's shelf.

 _"Angels are watching over you,"_ she used to say.

"I wish you hadn't said it wouldn't happen again," says Cas, and sticks out his arm. Dean takes his hand, carefully, and looks down at the Mark on his own forearm. Wonders how you are supposed to do this thing, if he can command the Mark to move with a word, wonders if Cas counts as a worthy man even though he is an angel.

Fuck that, thinks Dean, Cas is more worthy than anyone he's ever known.

There is a sudden fiery pain. Cas jerks his head back, eyes wide. The Mark is crossing between the two of them before Dean realizes the meaning of Cas' words.

_"I'm sorry. It won't happen again."_

_"Then why'd you kiss him?"_

Suddenly, Dean knows what Cas has been offering all along.

He leans down, slowly, looking at the pained expression on Cas' face. The same pain contorts his own features, he imagines, as their hands are locked together and the Mark exerts its terror on both of them. But Cas' eyes still track across Dean's face as he gets closer.

Dean has never been one for coming up with romantic one-liners. So he doesn't say anything. He simply brings his free hand up and brushes his thumb over Cas' cheek.

This time, when they kiss, it is all Dean could ever have hoped for. Their lips touch, gently at first, then increasingly demanding. Dean's hand threads its way around to the back of Cas' neck and his fingers slide through the angel's dark hair. Cas' eyelashes flutter against Dean's cheek. He tastes like absolutely nothing, but it is the best kiss Dean has ever had. He tries not to think about how it is probably a goodbye.

When Dean pulls away, the Mark is on Cas' arm. Dean is free.

He has never felt worse.


	10. Our Daily Dose of Faux Affliction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Please make it through this," says Dean softly, and Sam pretends not to hear, and Castiel quietly damns himself for being unable to reply.
> 
>  _I'm not going to, Dean,_ he thinks, and then everything is on fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I want to give a big thank you to all of my readers! I couldn't have made it through this without you guys and your encouraging comments. Thank you, thank you, thank you!  
> We've reached the end of this fic, and while it hasn't been that long, it's still been quite a ride! I can't believe I mustered the motivation to write this thing within such a short period of time.  
> Thank you all one final time, and enjoy!

Everything comes in flashes, for Castiel.

This is the end. The culmination. Either he lives through this, or he doesn’t, and his being is tossed away, shredded into nothingness. Ironically, angels do not go to Heaven when they die.

It is close now, his ending – very close, hovering just beneath his skin. He feels hollow. His eyes open and shut aimlessly, and if he was numb to the poison of his grace before, now it is more prominent than ever. It howls to be noticed, and he notices it. But he must do more than notice. In order to survive, he must control. He must take the rotting grace in hand and, even as it eats through him, he must direct it. The Mark burns on Castiel’s arm and he feels its unique poison beginning to seep through his flesh.

He struggles to remain in control. And while he struggles, and while his eyelids flicker, he observes.

He sees Dean, with an expression of something like relief. But that relief is tainted by horror. Dean’s face is close, very close to Castiel’s, yet Dean does not drop his head again, does not meet Castiel’s lips with his own, and for that Castiel is grateful. He could lose himself kissing Dean, could put his last strength into it and die without knowing.

He sees Sam, coming to lean over Castiel’s prone form. There is a crease of worry between his eyebrows – always worry, with Sam. Castiel wishes, momentarily, for a universe where Sam never has to wear that look of concern. A universe where he can smile and laugh and go to law school.

Sam’s lips move. Castiel can make out the words, but not respond – he is a vacant observer of this conversation that takes place above his dying vessel.

“I don’t know if he’s gonna make it,” says Sam quietly.

“He’s not,” says Dean, and he moves briefly into Castiel’s line of sight again. His freckled face is pale and drawn into angry lines. “Fuck, man, there’s no way he’s gonna. Fuck. Aw, fuck.”

Sam looks at him, almost cautiously. “At least you know...well, you know. That he – I mean, that you – that both of you, uh – ”

“Give it a rest, Sam. This ain’t some fuckin’ romance where everything turns out okay. And I swear to god, if you say ‘I told you so’ even once…”

“Sorry. That’s not what I meant.”

“I know it wasn’t.” Dean swipes a hand across his face and it leaves a wet track. He looks away. From Castiel’s flickering perspective, it seems like he is disgusted with something – himself, or this whole situation.

“You gotta – we have to believe he’s gonna make it through.”

“Shut the fuck up, Sam.”

Castiel’s eyes close for another blurry period of time.

When he reopens them, everything seems lighter than before. He wonders briefly, within his pain-wracked mind, if he is going insane. He can see the ceiling, white, and the far wall, illuminated by some invisible source. He can see the back of Dean’s head as he sits facing away from the bed. Castiel’s lips move, silently. He cannot speak.

"Where did you hide the blade?" Dean is asking.

Sam answers, "I don't know if I should tell you."

"I don't have the Mark anymore, remember? It's on that sorry bastard." Dean gestures haphazardly towards where Castiel is splayed out on the bed.

"Yeah, but - I dunno. You could still have some sort of, uh, lingering attraction to the First Blade. It could be dangerous for you to come in contact with it again."

"First of all, Sammy, that makes it sound like I want to fuck the blade."

Sam barks out a laugh. Dean continues, "Second of all, I promise I'm fine. Since I pasted the Mark on Cas' arm, all I've felt is anger at his dumbassery. I'm not having the urge to slaughter anyone, and I'm not having any visions of death or whatever imposed on me every time I blink. Sure, I'm a little messed up over remembering what I did to all those people, but that doesn't mean I wanna do it again. Far from it. Right now, I don't think I wanna kill anything else for the rest of my life." He takes a breath. "Although I'm sure I'll get over that as soon as I see Crowley's ugly mug again."

Sam bites his lip. Castiel can see him if he moves his eyes, just slightly. He feels like he is burning up and everything is glowing.

"Also," Dean adds, "There's no way I'm gonna bust outta this room and go get the First Blade if you tell me where it is right now. We're stuck in here."

"Alright," says Sam. He inhales, preparing to tell Dean where the blade is secreted away, but that is forestalled when he glances over at Castiel. His eyes widen. "Dude."

Dean sighs. "What?" He follows Sam's gaze, and his eyebrows rise. "Whoa."

Castiel, now the focus of both pairs of eyes, wants to ask them what is wrong. He wants to ask them what they see, looking at him, but he is too tired and in pain and can barely see through the brightness in his eyes. He is drowning and burning up at the same time.

"Cas," says Dean slowly, "You're glowing."

The grace, thinks Castiel. It is beginning to show through his skin. He is close, now, to dying. He must stay watchful. He must wait until the grace burns the Mark off his body and then he must cut it out of himself. And this is when panic begins to dawn on Castiel, because he does not have his angel blade; it is lying on the floor beneath Dean's bed, where it slipped from his sleeve while he was lying concealed. Castiel's eyes move back and forth, urgent, but neither Winchester notices. They must think his spasming is only a side effect of his death.

"Please make it through this," says Dean softly, and Sam pretends not to hear, and Castiel quietly damns himself for being unable to reply.

 _I'm not going to, Dean,_ he thinks, and then everything is on fire.

\---

Dean's hands stretch out uselessly towards the pillar of white light that used to be Cas. His mouth is working, but no words come out. The air is filled with a high-pitched ringing, like Dean has heard before - on that day when he was dragged out of Hell and dug his way out of his own grave. He remembers cowering in a gas station as windows shattered and shards of glass rained down atop his head. That ringing had been Cas' voice - Dean has no doubt that this ringing is, too. This time, though, it is something more. There are no words to describe the sound, but Dean thinks that if he had to choose one, it would be "agonized."

Cas is screaming.

Dean's hands find their way to his ears and his palms press uselessly against the side of his head. He feels something wet and sticky on his fingertips and knows that it is his own blood. He hopes that Cas doesn't bring him and Sam down in his dying throes. He thinks that this is a very cruel thing to hope.

He would hope that Cas lives through this, but it doesn't look like something anyone can live through.

The angel is sitting upright in Dean's bed, pure white light radiating from under his skin. It shoots from his eyes and mouth, as well. His hair ripples as if blown by a heavy wind, although the air in the room is still. Dean wants to reach out and touch him, wants to hold him tight until the screaming stops and Cas is dead, at peace, free from this agony. The Mark is a glowing red blotch on the angel's arm, violent and poisonous against the holy light that flows from the rest of Cas. Dean bites his lip so hard he thinks it will bleed and hates himself for starting them down the path that brought them here. It's his fault, in the end. He has killed his angel.

He hears a shout, behind him, and turns to see Sam struggling to hold the door shut. Oh yes, he'd forgotten about the demons. Dean casts another glance back at Cas' burning vessel and runs forward to help Sam with the door. But before he can get his hands on it, it slams open, throwing Sam sideways and into Dean's nightstand. Two demons stand in the doorway, looking at Cas with the demonic emotion closest to terror. Crowley is behind them, and he shoves his lackeys out of the way and strides into the room.

"What the hell is going on here?" he bellows, and Dean can barely hear his accented voice over the sound of Cas' screaming.

"He's dying, you dick!" Dean shouts back. "Fuck off and let him do it in peace!"

Crowley's eyes dart from Dean to Cas and back again. One hand is wedged within his coat, as if holding something there. Dean has a sudden dreadful feeling that he knows what it is.

"Why is he dying?" yells Crowley.

Out of context, the phrase "why is he dying" seems suddenly hilarious. So Dean laughs. And he lunges forward, hand balling up into a fist and that fist arcing towards Crowley's nose.

He lands a satisfying right hook and Crowley goes staggering backwards, blood spurting from his nose. The hand concealed beneath his coat comes out - and it is clutching the First Blade.

"No," shouts Sam, who has made it back to his feet. But it is too late - always too late. Because this is always how it was going to end, and Dean knows that now.

His eyes fix on the First Blade. Crowley has a hand to his nose, and he is grinning, toothily, his eyes red. His arm extends and he offers the First Blade to Dean. "Become what you were meant to be," he says, and somehow his quiet, rough voice pierces through the crescendo of ringing and Dean hears him clearly. "Accept it, Dean. You might be missing the Mark - " Because, of course, Crowley is observant enough to notice the glowing symbol on Cas' arm, " - But you're not missing the spirit. What happened to Cain, after you took the Mark from him? Not death, Dean. Not freedom. Only a sense of loss, and a pathetic existence." He proffers the blade more violently. Sam protests, but is drowned out.

Dean takes a step forward.

"Remember how good it was?" Crowley coaxes. "Remember what it felt like, holding those people's fates in your hands? It's freedom, Dean. It's life. Being a demon is only a fraction of wielding this blade, and I - I _envy_ you."

Dean's hand reaches out, and it is shaking again, the familiar loss of control. He looks down at his forearm and there, on the skin, is a shadowy shape.

"The Mark," says Crowley, noticing his gaze, "Is never one to give up easily."

Dean looks up and his eyes meet Crowley's. Human and demon. Green and red.

"Let's go take a howl at that moon," breathes Crowley.

Dean's hand seizes on the First Blade.

For a moment, it is as if everything is silent.

He can't hear Cas screaming. He can't hear Sam's cries of agonized protest. He can't hear Crowley's laughter, but he can see the smile that curls across his face. He can see the hand that gestures to his demons, and for an instant Dean knows exactly what that signal means. _Kill Sam._ Because Sam Winchester will not rest while his brother is under Crowley's control, will not allow Dean to go willingly into the dark. And in that split second, Dean considers what he wants.

The shadow of the Mark on his arm wants him to kill. It wants him to thrust the jawbone forward into Crowley's stomach and twist until blood pours over his hands, until the King of Hell is dead and Dean is victor. Hell will be his, then, and he can kill whoever he pleases. He flashes back to the vision of Sam lying on the floor, red pooling around him.

 _"Dean,"_ his dying mouth formed the words, _"I forgive you."_

The part of Dean that is wrapped up in the blade wants to slice Sam until he can't say those words anymore. Wants to rip through him again and again until he will never come back, not ever. No little brother for Dean to watch over. Not anymore.

The part of Dean that is a sappy romantic wants to rush to Cas' side and hold his hand, hold his burning, spasming hand until it's all over and Cas is dead and Sam is probably dead too, under Crowley's order. Wants Dean to sit there, still, with the First Blade in his hand and wait until the love inside him dies with Cas. Then he will be Crowley's creature. He will go anywhere he is ordered and he will kill, and he will like it. The seven people who died in that warehouse were only a beginning.

A fraction of Dean wants to run. He has the blade - he has his life. He is unstoppable. Crowley is looking to the side, at Sam. Dean can let Sam die, can push right past Crowley and leave Cas to burn out in a room full of demons. They won't catch him. No one will catch him. He will exist, somewhere out there in the world, and he will be ruled by the blade and this remnant of the Mark, and he will not regret.

As the moment passes, Dean wars within himself. The demons are drawing closer to Sam, knives appearing in their hands. Sam is sinking back into a fighting stance, desperate determination steeling his face - he will fight, although it is hopeless. Crowley's smile is widening. Cas' screaming reaches a final, high pitch, and Dean wonders briefly what went wrong with the angel's plan. Did he underestimate how painful it would be? Did he lose himself in the agony and forget to cut his grace out once the Mark was gone? Dean glances over at Cas and sees the red glow flaking off his arm, the Mark disintegrating with his death. That part of the plan, at least, seems to have been accurate.

So what went wrong?

And then Dean knows exactly what he wants.

He spins around, takes two steps to the bedside. He looks down at the angel he loved, and didn't know he loved, for so long.

With one swift motion of the blade, he slits Cas' throat.

The light streaming from Cas' eyes and mouth abruptly stops. Something smaller, brighter - Dean has never seen an angel's grace before, but it is simultaneously more and less impressive than he had imagined - emerges from the bleeding wound in his neck and floats upwards, dissipating into the air. And with it, the Mark peels off, its gory red-orange hue slowly dimming until it is nothing but a shadow, then less than that. Then - nothing at all.

It is very quiet as Dean's hand opens and the First Blade clatters to the floor. The remnants of the Mark are gone from his arm. Only smooth skin remains when he glances down at it, and then over at Crowley. Sam is pinned in the corner of the room by two demons with upheld knives, but something in the shock of Crowley's expression has stopped them. Or maybe it is the hand at his side, jerking into a signal that calls the demons off. They move silently away from Sam.

After an eternity, Crowley says, "You destroyed something great today, Dean Winchester."

"And I saved something better," replies Dean.

Crowley makes a scoffing sound deep in his throat, and then, with nothing to retort, he snaps his fingers. His entourage vanishes; Sam and Dean are alone in the room with Cas' limp body.

Dean looks down at the empty vessel and the imprint of wings stretching out from it. He opens his mouth to say something.

Then, slowly, a drop of living blood drips from the edge of Cas' wound.

Sam makes a noise of disbelief. "I'll get a first aid kit," he says. He and Dean look at each other as Sam flees the room, and neither of them can stop grinning.

\---

Some time later, two humans sit alone in a room. One has bandages around his throat. The other wears a leather jacket. They are both smiling.

"Sleeping is odd," says one to the other. "I never thought I would like it. But I've realized - it is a welcome escape from the waking world and all its troubles. Is that what humans find appealing about sleep?"

The other chuckles. "If you'd asked me before now, I probably wouldn't have responded with anything so philosophical. But actually - I think you're exactly right."

"There are a lot of things wrong with the world. A lot of things to escape from."

"Makes you wonder why we don't sleep all the time."

"But there are good things, too, Dean."

"Yeah," replies the other man, "There are good things, too."

He leans forward, and they kiss.


End file.
